3  1822  01042  6930 


STOFM 


3   1822  01042  6930 


DATE  0UE 


PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 


5-8 


- 


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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


PATIENCE   STRONG'S 
OUTINGS 


BY 

MRS.  A.  D.  T.  WHITNEY 


BOSTON  AND    NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
ffitoetfibe  $ restf ,  Cambribge 
1899 


Copyright,  1868,  1893,  and  1896, 
Br  MBS.  A.  D.  T.  WHITNEY. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Prest,  Cambridge,  Mats.,  U.  8.  A. 
Eectrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


CONTENTS. 


•Mi 

L  INTO  THE  BY-GONES 1 

II.  STILLNESS  AND  STITCHES            ....  11 

III.  THE  COMINGS-IN 21 

IV.  THE  LIFE  AND  THE  GLORY               .       •        •  33 
V.  INTO  THE  MEANINGS 45 

VI.  INTO  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  ....  57 

VII.  "FORZINO" 68 

Vin.  INTO  DARK  CLOSETS  AND  NEIGHBOR-HOUSES  .  79 

IX.  INTO  THE  MIDDLES 91 

X.  INTO  THE  SUNSHINE 99 

XL  INTO  THE  SHOPS 107 

XII.  INTO  THE  YEARS 117 

XIII.  INTO  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PART  OP  IT     .        .  127 

XIV.  INTO  GOD'S  TREASURE-BOX        ....  140 
XV.  INTO  THE  FAIRY  STORY 150 

XVI.  WITH  THE  SUNDAY  STRAYS       .        .                .  161 

XVII.  INTO  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  BUSINESS  ....  173 

XVIII.  INTO  THE  MIDNIGHT 186 

XIX.  INTO  THE  DAY-GLEAM 187 

XX.  INTO  THE  MORNING     ......  198 


PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTO   THE   BY-GONES. 

**  ELIPHALET'S  folks  are  going  to  Europe." 

Mother  says  that  in  a  meek  kind  of  way,  trying 
not  to  be  too  much  set  up  about  it,  to  the  neigh 
bors  when  they  come  in,  and  ask,  as  the  neighbors 
here  have  a  way  of  doing,  "  What  the  good  word 
is  with  us  ?  " 

It  makes  me  think,  —  that  greeting,  —  always. 
It  seems,  somehow,  as  if  it  were  a  sweet  old  fashion 
that  might  have  come  down  out  of  the  kingdoni  of 
heaven. 

That  syllable  is  so  full,  —  "  word  !  "  That  which 
"  was  in  the  beginning  with  God,"  and  "  without 
which  nothing  was  made  that  is  made."  What  He 
has  been  giving  out,  always,  —  down,  through  the 
angels,  unto  men,  and  into  things.  God's  meanings, 
of  thought  and  of  life  ;  his  instant  bestowal. 

Looking  at  it  so,  it  is  tender  and  solemn  to  hear 


2  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

the  neighbors  ask,  "  What  the  good  word  is  to 
day  ?  "  And  to  hear  mother  say,  with  that  kind 
of  tremble  in  her  voice  that  she  tries  to  straighten 
into  calmness,  "Eliphalet's  folks  are  going  to 
Europe,"  —  why,  it  is  as  if  the  leave  for  the  plea 
sure  was  just  the  day's  word  from  God. 

I  know  mother  is  glad  and  proud  at  Eliphalet's 
well-doing  and  getting-on.  She  is  a  little  afraid  of 
his  wife,  because  she  belongs  to  a  Boston  family 
of  consequence,  and  is  very  elegant  in  her  manners, 
and  never  takes  them  off,  not  even  for  the  most 
common  every-day.  But  then,  as  mother  says,  she 
is  n't  "  stuck-up,"  because  she  never  got  up,  and 
she  never  comes  down.  She  was  always  just  so. 
She  is  very  respectful  and  kind  to  mother,  but  she 
don't  like  to  be  introduced  as  "  Eliphalet's  wife." 
She  is  my  "  daughter-in-law,  Mrs.  Strong."  Not 
even  "  Mrs.  Eliphalet "  since  father  died,  though 
she  was  particular  about  that  before.  She  never 
objected  nor  suggested  in  so  many  words  ;  but  we 
always  find  out,  somehow,  just  what  Gertrude  con 
siders  proper,  and  likes  to  be  done.  She  is  "  Ger 
trude  "  among  us.  Mother  would  n't  like  it  other 
wise  ;  and  mother  has  her  quiet  proprieties  too. 

Well,  Eliphalet's  folks  are  going  to  Europe. 
He  and  Gertrude,  and  the  children,  and  their 


INTO  THE  BY-GONES.  3 

nurse,  and  their  Aunt  Marthe.  (That  is  not  a 
Yankee  shortening;  the  French  terminal  makes 
all  the  difference  in  the  prettiness.  It  is  just  so 
with  other  words.  I  remember  that  I  would  not 
call  my  white  waists  "gamps,"  thinking  of  bed 
gowns  and  Sairey ;  but  when  I  found  out  that  it 
was  the  French  "  guimpe,"  it  gave  a  grace  to  the 
name  and  the  thing.  I  don't  know  why  we 
should  n't  be  graceful,  even  if  we  have  to  be 
French.) 

Everybody  goes  to  Europe  now.  I  think  it  is 
to  get  rid  of  the  kitchens.  There  are  two  currents 
in  the  Atlantic,  —  an  upper  and  a  lower.  The  tide 
comes  in  at  our  basement  stories,  and  has  to  flow 
out  again  at  the  parlor  and  front  doors.  Perhaps 
that  is  the  reason  the  Gulf  Stream  is  changing. 
Things  have  to  equalize  and  accommodate. 

Eliphalet  came  out  last  Sunday  evening  on  horse 
back  and  took  tea,  and  told  mother  all  about  it. 
They  are  to  stay  a  year  or  more ;  travel  in  England 
and  Scotland,  and  Switzerland  this  summer,  and 
then  go  to  Italy  for  the  winter,  and  in  the  spring 
come  to  Paris  ;  home  when  they  get  ready.  How 
much  that  is,  to  do  and  to  see !  I  wonder  if  those 
little  children  will  take  in  anything,  out  of  it  all, 
to  keep. 


4  PATIENCE  STEONG'S  OUTINGS. 

"  Pashie,  you  ought  to  go  too.  You  don't  get 
many  outings." 

Eliphalet  said  that  just  as  he  went  off,  when  I 
was  bidding  him  good-by,  standing  on  the  door 
step,  patting  his  horse's  nose,  and  giving  him 
mouthf uls  of  fresh  clover  out  of  my  hand. 

Don't  I  have  many  outings  ? 

It  has  been  in  my  head  ever  since.  I  don't  think 
Eliphalet  knows.  It  depends  upon  how  far  you  go 
out  when  your  gate 's  ajar.  Everybody's  little  yard- 
room  opens  into  all  out-doors. 

Why,  it  seems  to  me  that  life  is  all  outings. 
When  you  don't  go  out  any  longer,  you  die. 
There  's  no  such  thing  as  shutting  people  up. 

Mother  and  I  have  lived  here,  all  by  ourselves, 
for  ten  years.  Before  that,  we  had  father  to  take 
care  of  for  five  years,  from  the  time  he  first  had 
paralysis.  And  before  that  it  was  Aunt  Judith, 
and  she  was  deaf,  and  dreadfully  —  well,  unex 
pected  in  her  ways.  I'm  thirty-eight  now,  and 
mother 's  fifty-six.  My  dear,  little,  young-old 
mother !  I  am  her  oldest.  So  near  her !  I  am  so 
glad.  We  're  such  comforts  to  each  other. 

Why,  I  've  all  her  life  to  go  out  into,  in  the  first 
place.  Ever  since  she  used  to  tell  me  stories  about 
"  when  she  was  little,"  and  "  when  she  was  young." 


INTO  THE  BY-GONES.  5 

She  keeps  that  dear,  simple  way  of  speaking  that 
she  learned  when  she  was  "  little,"  and  when  she 
was  "young,"  from  her  mother  and  the  old-time 
friends.  And  yet  she  has  gone  on  with  the  years, 
to  take  in  and  enjoy  what  the  years  teach.  She 
knows  new  books  and  new  thoughts,  and  the  light 
of  to-day  on  old  things  shines  for  her  as  truly  as 
for  any  one.  We  talk  over  the  philosophers  to 
gether,  she  and  I ;  and  we  love  the  grand  specula 
tions  that  take  in  the  ideas  of  a  humanity  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  years  old,  and  the  earths  buried 
within  the  earth;  its  coarse,  wild,  rudimentary, 
seething,  passionate  Past,  rank  and  slimy  and  rav 
enous  with  wilderness  and  reptile  and  beast,  cov 
ered  up  and  softened  over,  and  changed ;  greened 
and  beautified,  and  peopled  with  fairer  and  fairer 
life,  telling  us,  in  a  Word  as  big  as  the  world,  of 
how  it  shall  be  with  men's  souls  in  the  long  time 
and  patience  that  God  is  rich  in. 

She  loves  all  this,  but  she  does  not  trouble  about 

. 

new  phrases  and  pronunciations  in  her  every-day 

speech.  She  says  "  our  folks "  (kindly  old 
Anglo-Saxon)  where  Gertrude  would  say  "  our 
family,"  or  "  my  father's  family ; "  and  she  speaks 
of  when  she  was  "  little,"  so  that  it  makes  you  feel 
tender  toward  the  little  child  that  she  was,  and  that 

«?^  /y-/f  A£ 


6  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

somewhere  in  her  nature  she  has  not  yet  ceased 
to  be.  She  "suffers  the  little  child"  in  herself, 
and  is  in  no  wise  ashamed  of  it,  and  by  it  she 
does  always  behold  the  Father's  face.  My  dear, 
little,  young-old  mother !  That  is  the  heart-word 
I  always  have  for  her,  and  that  is  how  I  call  her. 

There  were  so  many  of  them,  sisters,  once ;  and 
her  life  takes  me  back  into  all  their  lives.  Now 
there  are  only  mother  and  Aunt  Hetty  Maria. 

Aunt  Hetty  Maria  married  the  two  largest  and 
oldest  farms  in  Dearwood  together ;  and  her  hus 
band  has  been  a  member  of  Congress,  and  she  lives 
at  the  old  homestead,  and  is  a  great  deal  thought 
of  and  looked  up  to.  She  always  wears  black  silk 
in  the  afternoons ;  and  when  people  come  to  see  her 
they  put  on  their  best,  in  gowns  and  in  behavior ; 
and  her  tea-table  is  always  ready  for  company,  and 
set  with  real  china,  that  you  can  see  through. 
Somebody  almost  always  does  come  in  to  tea  in  the 
summer  time,  and  so  her  house  is  "  society "  for 
Dearwood.  To  take  tea  at  Madam  Parmenter's  is 
to  take  the  best  thing  at  once,  and  the  freedom  of 
all  there  is.  The  ministers  always  go  there,  and 
the  lecturers,  and  people  that  have  any  public 
business,  and  those  who  have  friends  staying  with 
them. 


INTO  THE  BY-GONES.  T 

It  is  very  quiet  and  old-fashioned  and  dignified 
there  now.  It  has  got  the  air  that  only  ripens  with 
a  hundred  years'  living.  But  those  are  the  rooms 
they  were  born  and  grew  up  in,  and  were  married 
out  of,  —  thode  who  were  married ;  buried  out  of, 
—  those  who  diad  ;  and  there  was  where  the  young 
folks  had  their  tea-drinkings  and  their  courtings, 
and  their  housefuls  of  friends  at  Thanksgivings 
and  holiday-times ;  and  their  garden  and  orchard 
walks  and  talks  when  the  damask  roses  were  in 
bloom  or  the  peaches  were  ripe ;  and  their  moon 
light  sittings  under  the  great  trees  at  the  wide 
front  door. 

I  have  all  that  when  I  go  to  Dearwood.  It  is  all 
there ;  and  that  is  one  of  my  outings.  Many  ave- 
nued,  into  the  lives  that  have  been  partly  told  me, 
and  that  have  partly  told  themselves.  I  never 
stand  at  the  landing  halfway  up  the  broad,  shal 
low-stepped  staircase,  but  I  seem  to  feel  how  it 
was  when  they  and  their  visitors  went  up  to  bed  in 
the  old  times ;  when  they  stood  there  with  shining 
candlesticks  in  their  hands,  and  called  up  and 
down  to  each  other  in  the  last  talk  and  laugh  of 
the  night,  which  is  always  the  brightest  and  most 
beguiling.  Nobody  ever  said  a  word  about  that ; 
but  I  know  it  by  what  they  would  call,  nowadays, 
psychometry,  I  suppose. 


8  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

Aunt  Hetty  Maria's  picture  hangs  in  the  parlor. 
It 's  a  picture  of  gown  and  great  white  ruffled  cape, 
mostly ;  the  features  are  of  little  account,  and  were 
never  thought  to  look  much  like  her.  But  I  like 
it  for  the  very  gown  and  cape,  such  as  they  don't 
wear  now  even  in  their  dreams.  Such  things  grow 
queer  in  a  portrait  for  a  while,  and  then  they  grow 
ancient  and  graphic.  Then  they  tell  stories,  and 
are  as  much  as  a  face.  They  become  the  things 
that  portray. 

It  makes  me  think  of  warm,  pleasant  weather, 
and  company  coming,  that  picture,  with  the  low- 
necked  silk  gown,  and  the  wide,  clear,  fresh  muslin 
cape,  with  the  ruffles  standing  off  at  the  shoulders, 
and  the  hair  done  up  in  high,  smooth  bows.  It 
would  n't  have  been  a  dress  to  play  croquet,  or 
Aunt  Sally,  or  ship-coil  in ;  but  to  talk,  and  walk, 
and  gather  roses,  and  sit  in  state  in  the  best  parlor 
for  a  hand-round  tea;  and  so,  when  I  stand  and 
look  at  it,  it  takes  me  right  back  to  itself  and  into 
its  day. 

Why,  there  are  plenty  of  ways  to  get  out! 
Away  out  into  the  long-lived  years,  with  people 
one  never  saw  or  knew.  An  old  house,  an  old 
picture,  a  word  in  a  book  can  do  it.  One  need  n't 
necessarily  cross  the  water.  If  one  does,  it  is  to 

iX    ^   .»JL  .         &          ^  *  -V      V*   V 

?-M/: 


INTO  THE  BY-GONES.  9 

get  precisely  similar  things.  More  of  them,  per 
haps,  and  on  a  grander  scale ;  but  I  think  these 
help  me  to  know  what  those  would  be.  And  if  you 
really  do  know  what  a  thing  would  be,  I  think  you 
hardly  ever  get  it.  Because  it  is  the  meanings  of 
life,  and  not  so  much  living  itself,  that  God  has 
for  us  here. 

I  do  not  believe  I  shall  ever  go  to  Europe. 

A  journey  is  n't  always  an  "  outing,"  after  all. 
People  go  journeys  and  never  go  out  the  least  bit. 
They  just  pack  themselves  up,  and  first  they  are 
here,  and  then  they  are  there ;  and  that  is  all  the 
difference,  especially  in  these  times  of  railroads 
and  day  and  night  travel.  Why,  Europe  was  only 
a  bigger  Washington  Street  to  Effie  Butler,  Ger 
trude's  cousin.  She  went  away  in  four  trunks, 
and  she  came  back  in  eight,  that  was  all.  Shops 
and  dressmakers  in  Paris,  and  jewelers  in  Rome 
and  Florence.  To  what  she  had,  more  was  given. 
But  she  never  went  out. 

Perhaps  it  is  only  what  goes  out  and  stays  out 
that  counts  in  our  living.  That  is  God's  going  out. 
A  reaching  which  is  growing,  and  a  giving  which 
shares  and  multiplies  life.  That  was  Christ's  out 
going.  "  Virtue  went  out  of  him."  Blessing  and 
help,  of  a  kind  that  "  goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer 


10 


PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 


and  fasting."  He  himself  "  came  out  from  God  " 
and  into  the  world. 

It  tells  everything,  that  little  Saxon  syllable  of 
force :  how  God  gave  forth  his  creation ;  how  the 
suns  flung  off  their  planets  into  the  spaces ;  what 
human  living  really  means,  and  the  circles  that 
lives  make  in  time. 

I  should  like  to  think  up,  thoroughly,  what  my 
"  outings  "  have  been,  and  what  they  might  be. 

People  keep  diaries  of  their  travels :  I  wonder 
what  a  diary  of  these  would 


£&& 

°*\  , 

-'&o 


CHAPTER  H. 

STILLNESS   AND   STITCHES. 

SIT  still,  and  everything  will  come  round  to  you. 
It  would  n't  be  quite  safe  to  carry  that  into  all 
sorts  of  things ;  but  it  is  very  true  of  a  still  life. 
It  is  true  and  comfortable,  also,  of  many  a  quiet 
pause  in  the  midst  of  perplexity.  Did  you  ever 
lose  a  companion  in  a  crowded  street,  or  miss  an 
appointment  at  some  shop  or  corner  ?  And  did  n't 
you  find  out  that  the  best  thing  to  be  done,  per 
haps,  was  to  stand  still  till  your  friend,  in  the  rush 
hither  and  thither  in  which  you  had  both  been 
striving  to  meet,  came  by?  Only,  indeed,  if  both 
had  been  equally  wise  you  might  possibly  have 
both  stood  fast  until  to-day.  But  when  you  cant 
move,  it  is  a  contenting  theory,  and  it  works  well. 

Fashions  come  round,  even  to  red  hair.  Put 
away  any  old  thing,  and,  if  the  moths  don't  eat  it 
up,  it  will  turn  to  purpose  some  day.  "  Lay  it  by 
for  seven  years,  and  then  turn  it  and  lay  it  by  for 
seven  more,"  and,  if  you  don't  forget  you  ever  had 


12  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

it,  there  '11  be  a  want  for  it.  I  'd  rather  use  up  as 
I  go  along,  for  myself  or  somebody  else ;  but  the 
rule  stands  good  against  burning  up  or  throwing 
away. 

Sometimes  I  think  that  still  people,  like  us,  get 
most.  The  world  drifts  on,  and  round  and  round, 
and  something  is  always  touching  at  one's  corner, 
giving  one  a  glimpse,  and  in  the  stillness  one  can 
take  in  a  good  deal  that  the  people  in  the  hurry 
can't  stop  to  think  of. 

Now  Eliphalet  and  Gertrude  are  going  to  Eu 
rope.  And  they  are  full  of  plans  and  talk ;  and 
they  come  out  here  with  them.  Eliphalet  brings 
his  guide  books  and  gets  out  the  big  maps,  and 
tells  us  all  the  here  and  the  there  of  it,  and  the 
what  and  the  why ;  and  then  have  n't  we  got  it  all, 
mother  and  I,  without  the  trunks,  and  the  dress 
makers,  and  the  sewing  and  the  packing,  and  the 
seasickness  and  the  crowd,  and  the  care  about 
money,  and  the  care  about  one's  self, — the  trouble 
some  self  that  never  seems  to  be  in  the  way  when 
it 's  where  it  belongs,  but  that,  the  minute  you  set 
off  anywhere,  you  've  got  always  to  take  with  you 
and  to  tend  ?  You  see,  when  you  travel,  you  must 
keep  taking  out  and  putting  away,  your  clothes 
and  your  body,  all  the  time ;  in  and  out  of  boxes, 


STILLNESS  AND  STITCHES.  13 

in  and  out  of  boats  and  cars  and  hotels.  If 
your  sight  and  your  thought  could  go,  without  all 
this! 

They  do  when  your  friends  travel  for  you. 
When  you  've  found  out  exactly  what  there  is  to 
go  for,  as  you  only  do  find  out  when  somebody 
is  really  going,  why,  then  you  've  almost  been. 
And  when  the  letters  come  back,  you  're  as  good 
as  there. 

Not  but  what  the  doing  does  deepen  it  all.  It  is 
like  putting  any  other  dream  into  action.  You  can 
dream  in  a  minute  ;  but  it  takes  days  and  years  to 
live  your  dream  out ;  and  if  you  can  live  it,  you 
have  n't  made  it  your  own  until  you  do.  It  is  only 
that  the  minutes  are  given  to  them  who  are  for 
bidden  the  days  and  the  years ;  and  in  the  Lord's 
giving  He  can  make  the  days  as  the  years,  and  the 
minutes  as  the  days.  And  so  things  come  by,  and 
you  get  your  share,  and  the  bit  is  multiplied. 
When  the  people  were  hungry,  He  made  them  sit 
down  quietly  on  the  green  grass.  (There  is  always 
"  much  grass  "  —  much  possible  green  content  — 
in  every  place.)  And  He  gave  to  the  few,  and  the 
few  to  the  many ;  and  there  was  enough  for  all. 

I  think,  after  the  studying  and  planning  are 
done,  which  are  the  first  and  the  essence  of  the 


14  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

having,  the  next  best  must  be  the  between-time s. 
Quiet  hours  on  the  ocean,  when  you  know  you  are 
on  your  way ;  and  over  and  over,  ripening  and 
gladdening  in  your  mind,  come  the  plans  and  the 
visions,  and  the  feeling  of  what  is  going  to  be :  the 
stretches  of  railway  between  one  delight  and  the 
next ;  the  time  you  have  to  take  to  get  the  body 
along,  when  what  has  been  grows  mellow  in  the 
mind,  enriching  and  sweetening  it ;  and  what  is 
coming  comes  beforehand,  with  a  long,  beautiful 
slant,  as  the  dayshine  does  over  the  hills.  Yes,  it 
is  all  best.  And  I  know  I  should  be  glad  to  go, 
and  live  it  in.  But  I  can  stay  and  be  glad,  too, 
for  the  much  of  it  that  I  can  get  without  the  going, 
and  that  this  quiet  staying  works  with,  also,  like 
those  between-times  of  the  going.  Think  it  over 
as  I  will,  it  somehow  comes  out  even. 

I  believe  I  like  waiting  times.  Perhaps  it  is  be 
cause  I  have  got  used  to  waiting.  But  I  like  the 
days  between  the  knowing  and  the  having  of  a 
pleasure.  It  is  with  you  all  the  while.  I  like  to 
expect  a  letter.  When  it  has  come,  there  is  the 
end  of  it.  I  like  the  time  when  the  carpet  is  swept, 
and  the  fire  is  bright,  or  the  windows  open  to  the 
sunshine,  and  %the  flowers  are  in  the  vases,  and  the 
fresh  covers  on,  and  the  cake-basket  ready  in  the 


STILLNESS  AND  STITCHES.  15 

closet,  and  the  friend  expected  presently.  If  she 
came  right  in,  in  a  hurry,  as  soon  as  the  last  thing 
was  done,  it  would  take  away  half  the  pleasantness. 
And  in  this  I  feel  faintly  as  if  it  were  not  all ;  as  if 
there  might  be  a  meaning  of  something  deeper  and 
farther  on.  I  wonder  if  I  could  not  wait  with  some 
such  peace  as  this,  if  I  were  old,  or  had  a  long  and 
mortal  sickness,  or  were  left  alone  —  awhile  ?  Let 
ting  the  sunlight  of  heaven  come  slanting  in,  slowly, 
long  beforehand,  when  the  day  was  sure  to  be? 
Making  a  sweet  pause  of  patience,  rather  than  a 
craving  and  a  pain,  of  the  taking  away  that  was 
for  such  a  giving  again  ?  I  do  not  know ;  but  I 
think  it  is  what  this  pleasantness  of  waiting  means. 

I  was  very  wise,  and  strong,  and  contented,  — 
was  n't  I  ?  Where  is  it  all  gone,  and  why  could  n't 
I  stay  just  as  quietly  now  ? 

Oh,  but  it 's  very  different  now ! 

Eliphalet  has  asked  me,  truly  and  in  earnest, 
to  go  to  Europe  with  them ! 

To  put  myself  away,  and  take  myself  out  —  yes, 
well,  I  think  I  can  ! 

To  have  it  all,  —  to  mean  it  really  when  we  talk, 
—  to  have  the  rest  and  the  hope  on  the  sea,  and 
the  great,  beautiful,  actual  things  when  we  come 


16  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

to  them,  and  the  going  back  in  the  pauses  and  the 
stillness ;  and  the  waiting  for  more ;  to  keep  gather 
ing  in  and  laying  by,  and  to  come  home  again  rich 
for  all  the  rest  of  the  years ! 

But,  then,  my  darling  little  mother ! 

She  says,  "  Go,  dearie ; "  and  she  will  stay 
with  Aunt  Hetty  Maria;  she  never  will  have  a 
chance  again,  may  be.  And  the  home  here  can  be 
shut  up. 

She  means  /  never  may  have  the  chance  again. 
But,  then,  could  n't  I  take  it  partly  for  her  ? 
Could  n't  I  keep  giving  it  to  her  as  I  went  along, 
and  bring  it  all  back  to  be  glad  over  together? 
Nobody  else  would  write  to  her  as  I  would,  —  every 
little  bit.  Why,  I  should  be  like  Harriet  Byron, 
who  always  puzzled  me  so,  how  she  ever  managed 
to  have  the  things  happen  when  she  was  doing 
such  monstrous  days'  works  to  write  them  all 
down. 

If  I  go,  —  and  I  shall  keep  saying  "  if  "  till  I  'm 
on  the  deck  of  the  steamer,  for  I  can't  look  it  quite 
straight  in  the  face  that  I  'm  going  away  from 
mother  so  long,  or  bear  to  put  it  certain  in  words, 
—  if  I  go,  I  must  be  ready  by  the  fifteenth.  What 
is  to  become  of  my  waiting-time  ?  Am  I  to  rush 
right  into  this  great  pleasure  without  a  breath, 


STILLNESS  AND  STITCHES.  17 

when  I  like  so  to  stop  and  look  even  at  a  little  one  ? 
We  shall  see.  I  '11  work  hard,  but  we  will  have  a 
quiet  Sunday  and  Monday  before  I  go  to  New  York 
on  Tuesday. 

We  shall  start  together,  mother  and  I,  —  that 's 
a  comfort.  I  could  n't  leave  her  behind,  standing 
alone  on  the  porch.  And  when  she  gets  out  of  the 
cars  at  Bearwood,  there  won't  be  any  time,  as  Eli- 
phalet  says,  for  a  fuss.  Sometimes  a  hurry  is  the 
best  thing.  I  am  glad  there  are  quiets  and  hurries. 
There  always  are  two  things.  The  world  is  all 
opposites ;  and  one  thing  could  n't  be  without  the 
other.  You  can't  rest  until  you  're  tired ;  you  can't 
be  glad  if  you  've  never  been  sorry.  We  shall  find 
it  all  out  by  and  by ;  and  how  He  sees  that  every 
thing  is  good. 

We  have  n't  any  sewing-machine  to  hurry  with. 
We  never  wanted  one.  I  think  sewing-machines 
are  to  needle-work  just  what  railroads  are  to  travel 
ing,  and  telegraphs  to  business.  You  have  to  do 
ten  times  as  much  of  it,  and  you  can't  stop  to  enjoy 
it.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  way  the  world  grows  is 
very  much  like  the  game  of  "bezique"  they  used 
to  play  at  Gertrude's.  It  sounds  bigger  to  count 
by  hundreds  and  thousands  than  by  tens ;  but  it 
is  precisely  the  same  thing,  after  all,  as  to  the 


18  PATIENCE  STEONG'S  OUTINGS. 

game,  and  a  great  deal  more  bother.  In  fact, 
when  we  once  began  to  change  our  proportions, 
we  spoiled  the  whole  thing  and  got  tired  of  it  alto 
gether. 

If  people  would  only  dress  themselves  and  fur 
nish  their  houses  as  simply  as  they  did  before,  the 
machines  would  have  cleared  up  such  a  blessed 
space  in  life !  But  they  went  right  to  inventing 
and  multiplying  tucks  and  bands  and  rufflings  and 
flouncings,  and  things  to  put  them  on  to,  till  the 
only  difference  is  that  they  are  whizzed  to  death 
with  work,  instead  of  quietly  and  peaceably  tired 
out. 

No ;  mother  and  I  have  each  her  window,  —  hers 
looks  out  into  a  larch  and  mine  into  a  chestnut ; 
her  tree  is  tender  first  with  new  green  fringe  and 
bright  with  young,  red,  budding  cones ;  and  mine 
grows  beautiful  later  with  its  white,  feathery  spires ; 
and  we  have  each  a  round,  old-fashioned  lightstand, 
with  a  work-basket,  and  a  sewing-bird  screwed  on  ; 
t  <i/^vand  the  real  birds  flutter  up  the  green  stairways  of 


^  %'  the  branches,  and  sit  singing  on  the  rocking  tips 
of  the  twigs ;  and  we  are  still  and  happy,  and  have 
our  brains  to  ourselves,  and  rest  all  our  bodies  ex 
cept  our  ringers,  instead  of  keeping  head  and  hands 
and  feet  and  nerves  all  flying,  as  the  children  do  in 


STILLNESS  AND  STITCHES.  19 

"  My  mother  sends  me  to  you,  sir."  We  have  our 
thoughts  and  our  talk,  and  we  feel  the  threads  go 
in  and  out,  and  the  satisfaction  of  every  stitch  as  we 
make  it.  They  are  telegraph  lines  for  us  women,  — 
these  threads,  —  reaching  far  away  into  times  past 
and  times  to  come,  and  things  unseen.  We  put 
our  lives  together,  bit  by  bit,  at  other  whiles,  like 
patchwork,  and  then  we  sit  down  and  quilt  it  in. 
I  think  E  /e  sewed  the  fig-leaves  together  for  the 
sewing's  sake,  and  for  the  beauty  of  the  green 
tapestry -work,  before  ever  the  devil  put  it  into  her 
head  about  the  aprons.  Men  can't  do  anything 
but  smoke,  —  or  whittle. 

Mother's  life  and  mine  are  quilted  all  together 
so.  I  don't  think  anything  ever  could  separate  us 
now,  or  that  one  of  us  could  have  a  thing  and  the 
other  nut.  Mother 's  going  to  Europe  as  much  as 
I  am. 

"  I  can't  help  lotting  on  it  all  the  time,"  she 
says,  out  of  her  window,  over  her  lapful  of  night 
gown. 

"  And  the  lotting  is  the  whole  of  it,"  I  answer 
back,  over  mine. 

That 's  what  the  Yankee  word  comes  from. 
Things  are  only  what  we  "  allot "  to  them.  And 
the  heart  and  soul  do  that;  and  it  takes  a  very 


20  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

little  thread  dropped  into  the  wonderful  life  solu 
tion,  to  gather  in  heaps  the  lovely,  shining  crystals', 
each  to  its  own.  And  the  stiller  you  keep,  the 
more  crystals  you  get.  Which  is  exactly  what  I 
began  with. 


CHAPTER  HE. 

THE   COMINGS-IN. 

I  DON'T  know  which  are  the  most  or  the  best,  — 
the  outings  or  the  int-ings.  There,  —  I  thought 
before  I  wrote  it  down  that  I  had  made  a  word ! 
And  after  all,  I  've  only  come  round  to  an  old 
meaning.  "  In't "  —  "  hint "  —  "  inting,"  —  "  ink 
ling," —  they  are  all  the  same,  and  mean  just  this 
very  thing.  That  which  comes  in  to  us,  —  faintly, 
shadowly,  breathly,  —  we  can't  tell  how. 

I  '11  look  it  out  in  Worcester.  "  Etymology  un 
certain."  Well,  I've  found  it  out  then.  Please 
put  Patience  Strong  as  an  authority  in  the  next 
dictionary. 

When  I  was  a  little  girl,  this  house  had  a  piece 
built  on  to  it.  All  one  summer  there  was  an  un 
finished  room,  under  the  piazza,  just  boarded  in ; 
and  once,  when  two  or  three  uncles  and  aunts  were 
here  with  their  children,  and  every  place  was  full, 
I  slept  there.  In  the  clear,  shiny  mornings,  when 
I  woke  up,  there  was  a  little  beam  of  light  that 


22  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

came  from  the  east,  all  the  way  from  the  great  sun, 
straight  down  upon  the  world,  striking  nothing  un 
til  it  touched  an  old  elm-tree  in  our  yard,  and  then 
streamed  through  a  little  knot-hole  into  my  chamber. 
There  it  made  a  picture  on  the  opposite  wall,  —  a 
soft  gray  picture  of  moving  leaves  and  stems  ;  only 
a  bit  of  a  branch,  magnified,  I  suppose,  according 
to  the  law  of  optics  for  things  given  through  little 
glory-holes  into  camera-obscuras,  —  but  bringing 
the  whole  tree  in  to  me,  for  all  that ;  the  tree,  and 
the  wind  also  in  its  boughs,  and  the  freshness  of  the 
growing,  moving  morning-time.  All  this  came  in-to 
me  with  a  shadow  —  a  hint ;  —  to  me,  shut  up 
there,  with  only  a  little  knot-hole  as  big  as  my 
finger  for  a  window !  And  that  is  the  way  things 
do  come;  as  much  as  to  say,  like  the  old  song, 
"If  you  want  any  more,  can't  you  sing  it  your 
self?" 

Things  come  back  so ;  books,  for  instance ;  stories 
I  have  read,  and  feelings  they  have  given  me. 
Sometimes  it  is  n't  any  one  in  particular,  but  a 
sudden  sense  of  them  in  general ;  a  kind  of  ^Eolian 
stir  of  strings  in  me  that  have  been  touched  with 
pleasantness. 

Somebody  showed  me  a  spectroscope  the  other 
day.  I  went  to  see  a  friend  who  has  the  whole  of 


THE  COMINGS-IN.  23 

most  things ;  and  yet  she,  too,  must  come  to  the 
border,  beyond  which  she  has  to  live  by  hints ;  she 
showed  me,  and  told  me  about  it :  how  the  colors 
were  all  measured  off  with  wonderful  lines,  and 
each  kind  of  light  produced  its  own, — just  so  much 
in  breadth,  and  in  just  such  place  in  the  prism; 
how  the  light  of  the  sun  divided  itself,  and  the 
light  of  Sirius  showed  its  kindred  with  ours ;  how 
they  found  out  by  fusing  metals,  and  seeing  where 
their  colors  ranged  themselves,  just  what  must  be 
also  in  the  blaze  of  the  far-off  stars,  and  that  their 
glory  and  our  own  is  all  of  one.  She  burned  a 
little  salt  in  a  candle,  and  straight  and  swift  leaped 
up  in  the  prism  along  the  yellow,  in  Sodium's  line, 
a  vivid  thread,  thrilled  instantly  to  its  own  place : 
the  law  of  all  reception,  of  all  illumination,  of  all 
life. 

"Well,  it  comes  so  in  sudden  streaks  and  flashes, 
each  in  its  own  home-place  in  the  heart,  the  mem 
ory  of  what  one  has  gathered,  and  entered  into 
and  been.  Through  books,  or  places,  or  people,  or 
thoughts.  I  never  know  why ;  but  in  the  midst  of 
work  this  breath  comes  over  me,  and  in  it  is  a 
spirit-fragrance  that  touches  sense ;  a  momentary 
realizing  of  all  remembrances,  imaginings,  and 
hopes,  showing  how  true  they  are,  and  how,  once 


24  PATIENCE  STRON&S  OUTINGS. 

had,  they  are  never  to  be  lost  out,  or,  once  looked 
for,  they  are  sure  to  be. 

That  is  why  I  like  to  live  on  in  this  dear  old 
home,  and  why  I  should  hate  to  have  even  the 
carpets  wear  wholly  out  and  be  replaced  all  to 
gether  ;  it  is  why  a  fire,  I  think,  is  such  a  terrible 
thing ;  it  is  why  I  can  never  understand  how 
people  can  like  to  send  off  to  auctions,  and  new- 
furnish  their  homes.  Why,  when  they  do  that, 
they  have  n't  any  homes.  I  like  to  have  things 
kept  and  cared  for,  and  turned,  and  made  to  last ; 
and,  when  they  must  go,  to  have  the  complexion 
and  expression  of  them  renewed  in  something  as 
nearly  like  as  possible.  I  should  not  like  to  have 
our  sitting-room  annihilated  and  supplanted  by 
the  carpets  and  wall  paper  being  changed  to  as 
startling  a  difference  as  could  be,  any  more  than  I 
should  like  next  spring  to  have  all  the  trees  leave 
out  in  royal  purple,  or  the  sky  turn  green.  God 
keeps  the  home-feeling  in  his  earth  for  us ;  I  be 
lieve  he  will  keep  it,  too,  in  his  heaven.  Tilings 
must  wear  out  and  change  ;  but  the  spirit  and  the 
sense  may  last.  "  They  shall  pass  away  ;  but  my 
word  shall  not  pass  away." 

The  sitting-room  and  parlor  carpet  were  both 
alike  once.  Then  the  sitting-room  carpet  wore 


THE  COMINGS-IN.  25 

out,  and  the  parlor  one  was  put  in  the  place  of  it ; 
and  one  that  would  n't  look  badly  with  it  was  got 
for  the  parlor ;  and  so  by  little  and  little  we  shaded 
off  our  wontedness  from  one  into  the  other  ;  and 
now  I  suppose  we  might  take  away  the  first  and  re 
place  it  with  this  last  again,  and  have  still  another 
new  one,  not  too  different,  without  the  feeling  of 
a  break.  But,  now  there  are  only  two  of  us,  they 
will  last  as  they  are,  I  think,  all  our  lives.  I  hope 
they  will.  But  then  I  am  an  old  maid. 

I  like  that  sitting-room  carpet  so  much !  With 
its  great,  old-fashioned  ovals  of  shaded  browns, 
and  its  intermediate  lesser  figures  filling  up  with 
curving  lines  and  leaves  just  touched  with  deep 
relief  of  green,  —  good,  fast,  old  colors  that  stand 
wear  and  sunshine,  and  that  I  remember  so  many 
sunshiny  days  by ! 

I  remember  a  winter  morning,  when  grandma 
was  alive,  and  lived  with  us,  when  I  was  a  girl  of 
twelve,  and  sat  in  the  south  window  reading 
Irving,  out  of  a  great  volume  of  all  his  works,  that 
father  had  bought  at  a  sale,  —  delighting  in  Brace- 
bridge  Hall,  and  hardly  knowing  which  was  most 
enchanting  and  to  be  coveted,  the  "  fair  Julia's  " 
life  in  her  English  home,  or  that  of  the  beautiful 
Moorish  princesses  in  the  Alhambra.  I  remember 


26  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

the  sun  pouring  broad  and  full  across  my  lap  and 
the  page,  and  lying  level  along  the  greens  and 
browns  away  out  into  the  open  parlor  door,  and 
grandma  saying,  "  The  sun  lays  straight,  —  it 's 
twelve  o'clock."  All  the  cosiness  of  my  book, 
and  her  quiet  companionship,  and  her  knitting- 
work,  —  she  was  footing  socks  for  father,  —  and 
the  bright  day  ;  even  the  yellow  gingerbread  mo 
ther  gave  me  for  my  luncheon,  —  come  back  to 
me,  bringing  after  them  the  joy  and  freedom  and 
fancy  of  twelve  years  old,  when  life  was  only  a 
sketch  book,  —  as  often  as  the  "  sun  lays  straight " 
along  the  seams.  And  then  I  look  forward  as  well 
as  back,  —  for  the  soul  is  the  "  living  thing  full  of 
eyes  before  and  behind,"  —  and  think  of  the  time 
that  is  to  come,  the  time  that  the  dear,  kind,  simple 
grandmother  has  entered  into,  when  there  shall  be 
no  more  measuring  of  the  noonday  or  of  the  going 
down,  because  there  shall  be  no  more  need  of  the 
sun  itself,  but  we  shall  dwell  in  the  midst  of  the 
unmeasured  and  shadowless  light  of  God. 

I  do  not  suppose  anybody  could  have  had  just 
such  a  home  as  this,  anywhere  else. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  old,  old  garden. 
It  seems  as  if  it  must  have  always  been  old.  There 
are  flowers  there  that  don't  grow  in  new  gardens ; 


THE  COMINGS-IN.  27 

at  least,  not  in  the  same  way ;  and  that  now  you 
could  n't  hinder  growing  if  you  would.  There  is  a 
great  round  patch  of  ladies'-delights  under  an  oak- 
tree,  that  looks  as  if  it  had  been  carpeted ;  and 
they  come  up  there  as  if  they  were  only  wild 
violets,  and  open  their  golden  and  purple  eyes,  and 
make  little  short-stemmed  nods  in  the  wind  till 
they  seem  like  a  cloud  of  butterflies  just  lighting 
and  settling,  or  lifting  themselves  to  fly  away. 
And  down  in  the  deep  shade  by  the  brook  is  a  bed 
of  lilies  of  the  valley,  and  up  under  the  wall  by  the 
gate  is  another  ;  and  one  has  the  cool  and  the  dark, 
and  the  other  has  the  early  spring  sunshine ;  and 
so  we  have  the  dear  little  bells,  early  and  late,  half 
the  summer  through.  Then  the  narcissus  has 
spread  and  spread,  and  so  have  the  splendid  white 
July  lilies  ;  so  that  the  air  is  heavy  with  perfume 
in  the  time  of  each,  from  the  first  gladness  of 
opened  doors  and  windows  and  summer  balminess, 
to  the  long,  hot  days  when  the  sweet  smell  comes 
in  on  lazy  puffs  of  south  wind  through  the  green 
shadow  of  shut  blinds. 

And  the  broad  old  back  piazza  looks  down  on 
it  all,  where  the  ground  slopes  away  in  irregular 
beds  of  bloom  that  have  shaped  themselves  by  their 
growth  and  the  culture  they  got  just  as  they  asked 


28  PATIENCE  STRONG1  S  OUTINGS. 

for  it,  —  in  wide  turf  spaces  between,  —  under 
lilacs,  snowballs,  and  syringas,  and  horse-chestnuts 
and  maples,  —  till  the  brown  water  of  the  brook 
runs  its  sentinel  line  between  it  and  the  meadow- 
mowing  beyond. 

Down  on  one  side,  from  the  west  door-yard,  be 
side  the  garden  wall,  across  the  brook  and  up 
again  into  the  beautiful  oak  pasture  where  it  loses 
itself,  goes  the  green  lane,  by  which  the  cows  have 
been  turned  out  to  their  grass  and  come  home 
again,  morning  and  night,  ever  since  my  grand 
father's  father  built  the  place. 

Along  the  sides  you  find  the  first  wild  vio 
lets  and  the  little  mitchella,  and  in  one  place  the 
wild  honeysuckle,  spicy  with  odor :  and  down  at 
the  brook  the  fair,  slight  wind-flowers  growing  in 
thousands,  making  you  think  always  of  a  low 
breeze  running  along  the  ground  and  lifting  up 
their  delicate  faces ;  and  up  in  the  pasture  the 
lesser  Solomon's  seal,  that  I  go  and  bring  home  by 
apronfuls  in  the  late  May  and  early  June ;  and  in 
the  August  ripening  there  are  blackberries  and 
thimbleberries  under  the  walls  everywhere  ;  and  in 
October  you  can  go  down  over  the  pasture  ledge 
into  the  hollows  against  the  wood,  and  find  the 
wild  grapes,  purple  and  white,  lying  among  their 


THE  COMINGS-IN.  29 

great  cool  leaves  against  the  hot  faces  of  the  sun- 
gathering  rocks. 

Inside  the  house  it  is  just  —  our  house.  Full  of 
us  all ;  filled  up  once  and  never  to  be  emptied  of 
the  presences  that  have  made  it  home.  All  the 
rooms  open  into  each  other,  up  stairs  and  down ; 
you  can  always  shut  and  bolt  a  door  if  you  like, 
but  it  is  nice  that  they  can  all  be  set  wide.  The 
west  door  opens  from  the  porch  into  a  square  side- 
passage,  up  through  which  at  the  back  twists  a 
little  staircase  which  you  turn  into  at  the  bottom, 
and  turn  right  out  of  it  again,  because  you  can't 
help  yourself,  at  the  top  ;  and  before  you  think  of 
going  up,  you  are  up.  "  Similarly,"  as  Dickens 
says, —  down.  A  real  cute  little  staircase  that 
carries  out  the  sentiment  of  the  house,  joining  par 
lors  and  chambers  like  a  brace,  or  like  the  thing 
proof-readers  put  for  a  sign  of  a  transposal.  If 
you  can't  have  a  hall  like  a  saloon,  and  a  staircase 
wide  enough  for  four  abreast,  then  have  this,  — -  a 
little  bit  of  a  turn-round  that  lands  you  somewhere 
else  before  you  know  it,  and  that  don't  pretend  to 
be  anything  of  itself.  I  hate  a  middle-sized  entry- 
way,  that  is  neither  out  doors  nor  in,  with  two 
chairs  and  a  hat-tree. 

On  the  right  hand  is  the  kitchen ;  and  if  the 


30  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

door  is  open,  no  matter ;  for  you  '11  only  see  a 
white-scrubbed  floor,  and  a  still  whiter  table,  and 
some  bright  tins,  and  a  blazing  copper  pump  and 
boiler,  and  a  velvet-black  stove  with  a  square  of 
fresh-washed  oilcloth  around  it ;  and  perhaps  get 
a  whiff  of  something  nice  baking  in  the  oven. 

On  the  left  is  the  little  parlor,  —  the  winter 
room ;  and  out  of  that  opens  the  summer  parlor, 
larger,  and  lying  at  the  northeast  corner  of  the 
house.  A  door  leads  from  this  into  the  front  yard, 
on  to  the  grass  under  the  mulberry-trees ;  and  an 
other  opposite  into  the  sitting-room,  larger  than 
either  and  connecting  with  both;  and  from  that 
you  go  out  on  the  broad  back  piazza,  or  into  the 
kitchen,  and  so  you  have  finished  the  round. 

Upstairs  just  the  same ;  only  there  is  a  little 
back  stairway  nipped  out  of  a  corner,  so  that 
you're  not  obliged  to  go  through  other  rooms  to 
get  down  from  either.  The  great  chimney-stack  is 
right  in  the  middle,  and  the  sun  seems  to  be  on  all 
sides  of  the  house  at  once,  because  of  the  doors 
through  and  through,  that  all  come  opposite  to 
windows,  and,  if  he  looks  into  one  room,  invite  him 
right  across  into  another.  Just  so  with  the  breeze 
in  summer  time ;  you  can  get  it  anywhere. 

And  this  is  only  the  shell ;  there  is  all  the  filling 


THE  COMINGS-IN.  31 

up.  All  the  dear  old  furniture,  and  curtains,  and 
bedquilts,  —  of  everybody's  dresses,  —  and  book 
shelves  and  books,  and  pictures  and  ornaments,"^ 
that  are  an  inner  shell ;  and  the  filling  up  of  these, 
that  is  the  life ;  that  reaches  away  in  and  away 
out,  backward  and  forward ;  that  the  use  and  the 
handling  of  these  things,  —  even  the  having  them 
before  one's  eyes,  in  moods  of  pleasantness  or  pain, 
of  thought  or  listening,  —  in  times  of  search  and 
effort,  of  in-coming  and  answering,  of  love  and 
prayer  and  faith  and  doing,  has  made  to  repeat 
itself  and  link  itself  all  through  with  such  chains 
of  reminder  and  association  that  just  the  same 
life  could  never  have  been  or  grown  elsewhere,  and 
can  never  truly  feed  itself  so  well  as  here. 

I  begin  to  think  I  am  like  the  old  king  of  Gra 
nada  ;  fixed  in  one  spot,  but  with  windows  open 
ing  out  every  way ;  and  a  magical  board  on  which 
is  repeated  for  me  the  moving  of  all  life  that  is 
beyond  me  and  out  of  sight ;  that  I  may  watch, 
and  know,  and  even  truly  handle  and  rule  it  all, 
getting  my  own  out  of  it  as  if  I  were  among  it. 

For  we  are  back  again  —  mother  and  I ;  and 
our  trunks  are  unpacked ;  and  this  is  why  I  have 
been  all  over  the  old  home,  outside  and  in,  as  peo 
ple  do  who  have  been  away  so  long. 


32  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

For  I  shall  never  get  over  the  feeling  that  I 
have  been  to  Europe,  though  Eliphalet's  folks  went 
without  me,  after  all.  That  was  what  I  meant  to 
have  said  at  the  beginning,  only  I  got  so  taken  up. 

I  met  with  an  accident,  the  Saturday  before  we 
were  to  sail.  I  fell  down  the  little  front  staircase, 
out  of  the  best  chamber  door  into  the  kitchen,  and 
broke  one  of  the  bones  of  my  left  leg  just  above 
the  ankle. 

I  had  to  take  to  my  old  outings  again  ;  the  new 
ones  were  not  to  be,  just  yet. 

"  If  I  want  any  more,  I  must  sing  it  myself." 

Or,  it  will  be  sung  to  me,  if  I  listen. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE   LIFE   AND   THE   GLORY. 

THE  dear  little  mother,  brisk  as  a  bee,  kind  with 
as  much  of  God  as  a  motherly  heart  can  hold,  has 
gone  downstairs  with  Emery  Ann. 

Emery  Ann  is  our  friend  in  the  kitchen ;  she  has 
kept  the  tins  and  the  coppers  shining  ever  since  I 
was  ten  years  old.  Born  with  a  fate  and  a  genius, 
—  to  scrub  and  to  brighten ;  christened  with  an  in 
spiration. 

They  are  going  to  beat  whites  and  yolks  of  new- 
laid  eggs,  fine  sugar,  and  a  little  drift  of  flour,  — 
"  barely  enough  to  hold  soul  and  body  together," 
Emery  Ann  says,  —  into  the  spongiest  —  no, 
sponge  is  tough ;  it  is  n't  sponge-cake  they  make,  — 
but  the  foamiest,  puffiest,  airiest,  yellow  tenderness 
of  sweetness  that  can  be  baked  in  a  pan,  and  come 
out  with  a  crispness  all  over  it,  just  sufficient  to 
hold  its  rarity  in,  and  give  you  a  place  to  handle 
and  begin  on. 

The  more  mother  is  "  driven  "  the  more  she  can 
do,  always.  She  is  like  flame  or  gun-cotton. 


34  PATIENCE  STRONG'  S  OUTINGS. 

Try  to  build  a  fire  with  only  a  little  kindling, 
and  be  chary  of  your  wood  because  of  the  little 
there  is  to  start  upon,  —  give  it  only  one  solid  stick, 
and  see  how  loth  it  will  be  to  take  hold  !  How  it 
will  eat  up  its  chance,  and  dodge  its  work  !  How 
the  little  flickers  will  dwindle  and  shrink,  like  pre 
tenses  that  have  no  heart  in  them,  and  leave  only  a 
OJU-f  smoke  and  a  blackness  where  they  just  touched 
Jr-r^c  '  what  was  laid  upon  them  and  drew  back  !  Then 
give  it  more  to  do,  before  it  is  quite  burnt  out. 
Lay  another  stick  on,  and  another.  Leave  little 
airholes  and  climbing-places,  and  see  how  the  life 
leaps  up  again,  reaching  to  the  topmost,  after  the 
nature  of  all  spirit,  to  which  the  bright  element  is 
so  close  an  approach  and  emblem.  You  '11  build 


your  fire  just  by  laying  it  bigger.     God  makes  us 
burn  so. 


i  •  It  is  a  good  thing  to  remember  ;  I  've  thought  of 
it  many  a  winter's  morning,  when  I  've  been  down 
on  my  knees  on  the  hearth  coaxing  the  blaze. 

I  've  thought  of  the  same  thing  when  I  've  had 
an  old  pair  of  scissors  to  deal  with ;  a  dull,  loose 
pair,  with  no  grasp  in  them.  Try  them  on  a  single 
thread,  or  a  thin,  flimsy  fabric,  and  what  a  fuss ! 
They  double,  and  grind,  and  fray,  and  worry,  and 
might  as  well  be  one  half  on  one  side  of  the  room 


THE  LIFE  AND  THE  GLORY.  35 

and  one  on  the  other,  for  all  the  cut  you  can  get 
out  of  them.  But  fold  up  two  or  three  thicknesses 
of  the  same  thing,  or  set  them  at  a  stout,  heavy 
cloth,  and  away  they  go,  as  young  as  ever  they 
were. 

I  've  noticed  it  true  of  a  good  many  things.  It 
is  a  principle  that  runs  through  the  world,  and  the 
life  and  the  doing  of  it. 

A  young  engineer,  fresh  from  the  war,  told  me 
about  the  gun-cotton.  If  you  give  it  an  easy  job, 
it  will  take  it  easy ;  there  '11  be  very  little  explosive 
effect ;  as  likely  as  not  it  won't  work  at  all.  But 
pile  on  difficulty ;  bury  it  deep ;  seal  it  close ;  let 
there  be  tons  of  rock  or  masonry  above  it  and  in 
its  way ;  and  it  wakes  up ;  it  flings  out  all  its  awful 
force ;  it  rends  and  hurls  and  shatters  and  tears 
its  escape,  through  and  up  and  out,  like  a  chal 
lenged  fiend.  It  scorns  light  work ;  it  is  at  home 
only  among  tremendous  opposing  forces. 

Emery  Ann  says  mother  is  the  "  spunkiest " 
woman  she  ever  knew.  The  more  you  bother  her, 
the  brighter  she  '11  come  out.  The  more  you  put 
upon  her,  the  better  it  '11  be  done. 

She  will  pack  a  day  as  you  pack  a  trunk.  If 
you  Ve  only  a  few  large,  light  things,  you  can  lay 
them  in,  and  make  a  great  show  of  being  brimful 


36  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

directly.  But  if  you  've  got  to  crowd  close,  squeez 
ing  in  one  thing  is  always  making  some  little  inter 
stice  for  another.  The  busiest  day  that  comes, 
with  her,  is  sure  to  leave  a  corner  of  chance  for 
extra  work ;  something  that  can  be  done  as  well  as 
not,  "seeing  she  is  about  amongst  things."  She 
will  stir  up  a  pan  of  cake  because  she  finds  she  has 
to  wait  a  few  minutes  for  the  flat-irons.  If  she 
had  been  upstairs,  and  settled  down,  she  might  not 
have  thought  she  could  take  the  time  to  come  pur 
posely  and  do  it.  So  there  's  that  much  clear  gain. 
Busy  lives  are  full  of  gains  like  these. 

But  it  is  nice  to  have  rest  laid  out  for  you,  once 
in  a  while,  —  even  by  a  broken  leg.  I  think,  on 
the  whole,  now  I  have  tried  it,  that  it  is  rather  bet 
ter,  if  anything,  than  headaches.  You  have  the 
same  privilege,  and  can  make  a  good  deal  more 
of  it. 

I  am  too  much  mother's  child  to  be  really  lazy ; 
but  I  think,  for  all  that,  it  is  one  of  my  outings 
when  I  have  to  give  up  and  stay  in  bed  awhile.  It  j 
is  morning  all  day,  then.  That  lingering  pause  of 
rest  and  thought,  — thought  coming  in  so  easily  and 
freshly,  when  life  is  put  off  a  little,  and  we  need 
not  begin  again  just  yet  to  do.  A  time  we  are 
sore  tempted  to  steal  a  little  more  of ;  and  that  is, 


THE  LIFE  AND  THE  GLOBY.  37 

truly,  so  good  for  us  that  it  is  given  to  us  now  and 
then,  in  a  whole  slice,  perforce.  To  have  the  cham 
ber  fresh  and  sweet,  the  bed  nice  with  new  linen, 
one's  best  cap  and  ruffles  on,  and  all  the  little  dear 
familiar  things  set  straight,  and  looking  upon  one 
round  about  with  their  pleasantest  faces  ;  to  know 
that  -one  is  justified  in  it  all,  and  can't  help  it ;  but 
may  just  take  it  as  a  free  gift,  and  lie  softly  under 
the  blessing  of  a  ministering  love,  —  I  think  it 
makes  what  comes  of  pain  a  blessedness ;  a  help, 
too,  for  the  days  beyond. 

Mother  has  done  it  all  for  me,  just  now,  sweetly 
and  heartfully ;  and  has  gone  down  with  Emery 
Ann,  as  I  said,  leaving  me  here,  with  the  window 
open,  and  my  books  and  paper  and  pencil  on  the 
bed  beside  me,  her  kiss  warm  on  my  forehead,  and 
God's  rest  underneath  me,  to  wait  for  the  int-ings, 
and  to  go  out  with  a  soul  like  a  bird  that  has  aU 
heaven  to  fly  in. 

J'  The  Everlasting  Arms."   I  think  of  that  when- 
ever  rest  is  sweet.     How  the  whole  earth  and  the 
strength  of  it,  that>  is  almightiness,  is  beneath  every 
/  tired  creature  to  give  it  rest ;  holding  us,  always  ! 
No   thought   of  God  is  closer   than   that.     No 
human  tenderness  of  patience  is  greater  than  that 
which  gathers  in  its  arms  a  little  child,  and  holds 


38  PATIENCE  STBON&S  OUTINGS. 

it,  heedless  of  weariness.  And  He  fills  the  great 
earth,  and  all  upon  it,  with  this  unseen  force  of  his 
love,  that  never  forgets  or  exhausts  itself ;  so  that 
everywhere  we  may  lie  down  in  his  bosom  and  be 
comforted.  Weariness  and  despair  and  penitence, 
and  pain  and  helplessness,  —  these  prostrate  them 
selves  ;  they  fling  themselves  on  the  heart  of  the 
Father,  and  He  holds  them  there  !  Jesus  fell  on 
his  face  and  prayed. 

A  very  gentle  wind  lifts  and  lets  fall  the  white 
curtain-edge,  and  moves  tenderly  the  young  leaves. 

The  great  branches  are  still ;  only  the  little  out 
most  twigs  and  shoots  stir  softly  and  shyly  as  it 
touches  them,  hiding  their  faces  against  each  other 
as  if  some  holy  mystery  came  close.  And  so  it 
does. 

The  first  thing  I  opened  my  eyes  to  this  morn 
ing  was  this  little  moving  of  the  muslin  shade 
against  my  partly  open  window.  It  is  a  living, 
and  not  a  dead  world  that  we  are  born,  and  wake 
daily,  into ;  everything  moving,  and  throbbing  with 
life,  and  breath,  and  presence. 

It  is  not  death  and  emptiness  we  go  out  into, 
any  more,  when  we  die  ;  but  into  the  fullness  and 
the  inmost  of  the  life  behind  the  appearance.  _  In 
this  inmost,  how  close  we  shall  come  to  Him  and 


THE  LIFE  AND  THE  GLORY.  39 

to  each  other !  Closer  than  we  ever  did  through 
the  types  and  patterns. 

People  talk  about  "  physical  manifestations  "  of 
spiritual  presence ;  as  if  they,  by  their  prying,  had 
found  out  some  new  thing,  and  got  at  what  they 
never  could  reach  before.  When  God  has  "  never 
left  himself  without  a  witness,"  and  the  hills  and 
the  trees  and  the  clouds  and  the  grass-blades  are 
forever  making  signs  to  us,  —  the  manual  of  his 
meanings. 

"  Without  the  Word  was  nothing  made  that  is 
made." 

There  is  no  empty  talk  with  Him. 

And  this  Word  is  the  same,  —  the  se^-same,  — 
with  the  living,  loving,  speaking,  Christ.  Out  from 
the  Father  this  yearning,  seeking  bestowal  of  him 
self  came  in  its  fullness  by  the  begetting  of  the 
Son.  The  whole  and  uttermost  meaning  of  God  in 
and  for  his  world.  The  alphabet  of  his  language 
in  humanity,  holding  all  its  signs  and  possible 
words,  —  beforehand.  The  Alpha  and  Omega. 
"  By  him  are  all  things,  and  in  him  all  things  con 
sist." 

That  is  all  the  theology  I  can  find  or  come  to. 
That  is  enough.  Christ  "in  the  bosom"  of  the 
Father's  glory.  "  God  with  us  "  by  him. 


40  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

I  can  shape  it  dimly  to  myself  in  this  way.  If  a 
mortal  man  could  have  a  glorious  and  holy  concep 
tion,  a  purpose  that  should  reach  far  out  of  him, 
and  could  have  such  life  in  himself  as  to  give  it 
life  in  itself,  so  that  it  should  be  a  love  to  bless, 
and  a  conscious  gladness  to  return  to  him  again  :  so 
that  it  should,  in  a  beautiful  personality,  born  of 
him  as  his  child,  and  none  the  less  his  own  out 
going,  be  sent  to  unfold  its  work,  counseling  with 
the  soul  that  caused  it,  and  exchanging  a  sublime 
and  intimate  joy ;  if  his  spirit,  like  the  sun,  coidd 
throw  off  a  thought-planet  so,  —  then  out  of  him 
might  have  gone  forth  something  that  should  be 
like  the  Son  of  God. 

Beginning  at  the  other  end,  working  painfully 
up,  the  philosophers  have  reached*  part  way  ;  find 
ing  that  man  is  the  crowning  intent  of  the  long 
labor  of  creation  ;  not  remembering  how  God's 
thought  is  different  from  our  thought, — that  it  ful 
fills  itself,  and  is,  and  lives ;  how  He  cannot  think 
of  anything  that  straightway  shall  not  be;  how 
when  He  thought  his  Fatherhood  and  his  creation, 
and  loved  his  thought,  it  may  be  that  his  Christ 
must  needs  have  been  born,  —  that  his  thought 
might  know  itself,  and  love  Him  back,  and  do  his 
will,  and  perfect  his  joy,  which  cannot  be  alone. 


THE  LIFE  AND  THE  GLORY.  41 

The  Man ;  whose  life  was  to  be  illustrated,  in 
time,  by  all  men  ;  members  of  his  body ;  the  full 
ness  of  Him  who  filleth  all  in  all.  In  him,  as  he 
in  God. 

This  was  the  glory  that  he  prayed  for ;  the  glory 
that  he  came  into  our  human  life,  fallen  away  from 
the  Divine  Pattern,  to  redeem  unto  himself ;  that 
which  he  had  with  the  Father,  before  the  world 
was.  "  I  am,  before  Abraham." 

"  The  beginning  —  the  firstborn  from  the 
dead ; "  from  the  dead  of  that  which  was  not ; 
God's  gift  of  himself  unto  himself;  his  image, 
when  in  that  image  He  would  make  living  souls. 
"  The  firstborn  of  every  creature  ;  "  "  in  whom  it 
pleased  the  Father  that  there  should  all  fulness 
dwell."  Does  not  that  grand  first  chapter  of  Co- 
lossians  tell  it  all  ? 

And  then,  again,  the  beginning  to  the  Hebrews ; 
to  the  people  who,  with  their  old  traditions  of  crea 
tion  and  their  sole  revelation  of  Jehovah,  would 
most  of  all  look  to  be  told  of  the  origin  of  Christ 
far  back  in  God. 

"Who,  being  the  brightness  of  his  glory,  and 
the  express  image  of  his  person,  and  upholding  all 
things  by  the  word  of  his  power,"  — this  very  God- 
strength  of  the  Everlasting  Arms  that  is  forever 


42  PATIENCE  STRON&S  OUTINGS. 

under  us, —  is  blessed  out  of  the  deep  heart  of 
Almightiness  with  an  infinite  human  joy.  "  Thou 
art  my  Son  ;  this  day  have  I  begotten  thee.  I  will 
be  to  him  a  Father,  and  he  shall  be  to  me  a  Son. 
And  let  all  the  angels  of  God  worship  him  !  " 

Can  I  believe  too  much  in  Christ,  the  Lord  ? 

Perhaps  the  apostle  might  mistake,  as  people 
measuring  him  to-day  would  reason ;  but  I,  Pa 
tience  Strong,  mistake  also  many  things.  How 
can  I  judge .?  I  think  I  had  better  be  mistaken 
with  Paul,  who  had  the  nearer  and  the  grander 
vision,  than  by  my  feeble  self. 

More,  again.  I  will  be  mistaken  with  Him, 
when  he  says :  "  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen 
the  Father.  The  only  begotten  Son,  which  is  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father,  he  hath  declared  him. 
No  man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me." 

Somebody  greater  than  I  should  make  out  the 
awful  argument.  I  am  only  Patience  Strong. 
These  are  the  thoughts  that  come  to  me  of  Jesus, 
and  they  come  only  so.  They  come  in  flashes ;  j 
lightning  out  of  the  one  part  unto  the  other  part 
under  heaven ;  linking  great  words  together,  and 
showing  the  glory  into  which  we  are  all  baptized ; 
the  glory  of  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


THE  LIFE  AND  THE  GLOEY.  43 

Lying  here,  as  to  my  body,  so  quietly,  so  help 
lessly, —  thought-outings  stretch  the  farther  and 
higher. 

First,  a  mere  pleasantness  ;  then  a  rest,  growing 
holy  in  its  comfort,  and  the  reminder  of  it  lead 
ing  up  to  him  who  saith  to  all  the  weary  : "  Lo, 
I  will  give  it  you  ;  come  unto  me."  How  one  that 
is  again  with  the  Everlasting  Arms !  How  Jesus 
promises  for  the  Father,  and  the  Father  for  him  I 
How,  sitting  at  the  feet  of  the  One,  we  are  lifted 
up  unto  the  bosom  of  the  Other  ! 

My  Lord,  — and  my  God ! 

The  words  of  an  impetuous  faith,  so  joined  to 
gether  and  sundered  by  no  rebuke  of  his,  are  creed 
enough  for  me. 

I  do  not  care  to  go  further  than  the  feeling,  or 
to  fit  the  words  to  any  precise  doctrine.  How  can 
we  make  plan  and  specification  of  these  things  ? 
They  are  too  high  and  wonderful.  We  who  do  not 
know  ourselves  or  each  other,  how  shall  we  mea 
sure  and  investigate  the  personal  relation  between 
Christ  and  the  Father  ?  If  we  cannot  understand 
to  believe  even  earthly  things,  how  shall  we  believe 
if  we  are  told  of  heavenly  things  ?  What  and  if 
we  should  see  the  Son  of  man  ascend  up  where  he 
was  before  I 


44  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

That  which  stands  so  joined  together,  in  the 
word  of  Christ  and  in  the  impulse  of  faith,  is 
enough.  The  manifestation  of  Jesus  and  the 
nearness  of  God.  To  feel  him  close  is  to  be 
drawn  into  the  Infinite  Glory.  "  Christ  raised 
from  the  dead  by  the  glory  of  God."  This,  that 
Paul  said  after,  was  simply,  perhaps,  what  Thomas 
felt.  The  recognition  of  the  Son  and  of  the 
Father,  which  is  forever  glad,  and  forever  one. 
So  that  "  he  that  abideth  in  the  doctrine  of  Christ 
hath  both  the  Father  and  the  Son  ; "  and  receiving 
him,  the  Lord,  we  do  always  in  the  self-same  mo 
ment  receive  and  fill  ourselves  with  God. 

I  have  gone  high  and  far,  to-day.  Here  must 
the  end  be,  and  the  hush,  —  at  His  feet ! 


CHAPTER  V. 

INTO  THE  MEANINGS. 

I  KNEW  that  the  world  was  built  by  correspond 
ences  before  I  ever  heard  of  Swedenborg;  that 
there  were  meanings  in  things,  and  that  things  had 
to  be  made  for  the  giving  of  the  meanings.  I  sup 
pose  I  have  said  it,  over  and  over,  already,  it  is  so 
much  in  my  mind.  And  why  not?  Since  the 
whole  world  —  and  worlds  —  are  the  eternal  tele 
graphy  from  God's  thought  into  ours ;  meant,  there 
fore,  to  be  in  our  minds,  and  that  continually  ;  the 
very  inpouring  of  life. 

I  have  read  them  out,  some  of  them,  in  New 
Church  writings  since ;  and  I  have  only  wondered 
that  there  had  ever  needed  to  be  such  a  system 
built;  as  if  Christ  had  not  sufficiently  indicated 
and  inaugurated  it,  when  he  translated  all  his  holy 
lessons  straight  from  the  glowing  parables  of  God. 
And  I  think  —  at  least  it  always  seems  to  me  — 
that  the  great  trouble  with  the  Swedenborgian  sys 
tem  is  that  it  is  too  definite.  You  can't  make  a  die- 


46  PATIENCE  STRON&S  OUTINGS. 

tionary  of  these  things.  The  Spirit  takes  them  and 
uses  them  as  it  will.  They  are  broad  and  elastic, 
and  many-sided ;  they  show  this  to  the  soul  to-day, 
and  that  to-morrow,  as  it  needs  ;  and  every  show 
ing  is  true.  And  the  soul  must  grow  up  into  them, 
as  a  child  into  a  language  into  which  it  is  born ; 
which  is  such  a  different,  living  thing  from  the 
same  language  taught  by  rule  and  method  of  letter 
and  construction.  That  was  the  way  they  heard, 
of  old,  by  the  Spirit,  each  in  his  own  tongue,  in 
which  he  was  born,  —  no  other. 

I  know  that  water  means  truth,  and  cleansing : 
the  truth  that '  enters  through  the  intelligence,  and 
the  clear-seeing  of  God's  signs. 

But  you  cannot  say  it  all,  in  saying  that. 

It  is  gladness  and  gift,  and  many  things  more. 
Round  and  round  the  world,  through  all  the  thirst 
of  it,  it  goes,  taking  its  way  in  many  changing 
forms.  In  it  are  moving  things  :  things  that  are 
born  of,  and  are  joyous  in  it,  as  our  thoughts  and 
knowledges  are  born  of,  and  glad  in,  the  full,  deep 
sea  that  spiritually  holds  them.  It  cools,  it  com 
forts,  it  quenches,  it  delights.  It  is  the  fine  ele 
ment  by  which  are  transfused  all  the  subtleties  of 
vegetable  life ;  all  the  juices  of  our  physical  bodies. 
It  is  the  vehicle  for  giving  of  good,  and  for  taking 


INTO  THE  MEANINGS.  47 

away  of  superfluity  and  evil ;  it  penetrates,  solves, 
perspires ;  it  is  one  of  God's  great  comprehensive 
wonders. 

Jesus  could  promise  no  greater,  nor  fuller,  than 
to  say,  "  I  will  give  you  water  ;  and  it  shall  be  in 
you,  springing  up  to  everlasting  life."  Water  is 
joy,  —  satisfying  ;  all  craving  and  answer  meet  in 
this  embodied  pledge  of  heaven. 

If  I  were  to  give  you  some  thoughts  of  mine 
about  it,  just  as  I  once  wrote  them  down,  perhaps 
you  would  say,  "  It  is  not  Patience  Strong." 
That  is  why  I  hardly  like  to  give  them ;  and  yet 
they  belong  just  here.  Thinkings  trace  them 
selves  round,  until  they  meet  their  own  curves 
again,  like  some  intricate  pattern  that  joins  its  line 
and  shows  itself  suddenly  one. 

I  was  always  a  little  afraid  of  big  words. 
When  we  were  children,  Eliphalet  used  to  call  me 
Polly  Syllable,  if  ever  I  used  them ;  and  nothing 
made  me  more  ashamed. 

So  I  have  mostly  kept  my  verses  to  myself. 
Mother  sees  them ;  but  then  she  knows ;  she  under 
stands  ways  and  fashions,  times  and  occasions. 
She  knows  that  the  same  woman  can  put  herself 
into  a  gingham  short  gown  and  old  shoes,  or  high- 
heeled  slippers  and  a  long  train ;  and  that  nothing 


48  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

is  easier,  perhaps,  than  such  outside  change,  or 
makes  less  matter  to  the  real  woman  inside.  I 
think  she  could  write  poetry  perfectly  well  herself, 
and  come  out  of  it  again  into  her  simple  Yankee 
every-day,  exactly  the  same  as  ever.  We  lift  up 
our  words  to  meet  our  thoughts;  and  let  them 
down  again  for  homelier  uses. 

Anyway,  I  just  am  Patience  Strong ;  I  am  sure 
of  that,  myself,  whether  or  no.  Other  people  must 
make  what  they  can  out  of  it. 

I  wrote  this,  then,  about  the 

RAIN. 

From  all  this  vital  orb  of  earth 

A  breath  exhaleth  to  the  air, 
That,  heaven-distilled  to  equal  grace, 

Falls,  a  fresh  bounty,  everywhere. 

The  dark  mould  drinks  the  sunset  cloud, 
And  tastes  of  heaven ;  unconsciously, 

Green  forest-depths  are  stirred  to  catch 
A  far-off  flavor  of  the  sea. 

No  drop  is  lost.    God  counteth  all. 

And  icy  crests,  in  glory  crowned, 
With  faint  rose-petals  yield  and  take, 

And  so  the  unwasted  joy  goes  round. 

One  spirit  moveth  in  it  all ; 

One  life  that  worketh  large  and  free, 


ZIVTO  THE  MEANINGS.  49 

To  each,  from  all,  forevermore, 
Giving  and  gathering  silently. 

God's  stintless  joy  goes  round,  goes  round ; 

No  soul  that  dwelleth  so  apart 
It  may  not  feel  the  circling  pulse 

Out-welling  from  the  Eternal  Heart. 

Athirst !  athirst !     The  sandy  soil 

Bears  no  glad  trace  of  leaf  or  tree ; 
No  grass-blade  sigheth  to  the  heaven 

Its  little  drop  of  ecstasy ; 

Yet  other  fields  are  spreading  wide 

Green  bosoms  to  the  bounteous  sun ; 
And  palms  and  cedars  shall  sublime 

Their  rapture  for  thee,  waiting  one  ! 

It  comes  with  smell  of  summer  showers, 

To  stir  a  dreamy  sense  within, 
Half  hope,  and  half  a  pained  regret,  — 

It  may  be,  —  or,  it  might  have  been ! 

The  joy  that  knows  there  is  a  joy ; 

That  scents  its  breath,  and  cries,  'T  is  there  I 
And,  patient  in  its  pure  repose, 

Receiveth  so  the  holier  share. 

I  know  a  life  whose  cheerless  bound 

Is  like  a  deep  and  silent  chasm 
Left  dark  between  the  daybright  hills, 

In  time  long  past,  by  fiery  spasm. 


50  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

The  mocking  sunlight  leaps  across ; 

The  stars,  with  Levite  glance,  go  by ; 
So  vainly  doth  its  dreary  depth 

Plead  to  the  far-off,  pitiless  sky. 

Yet  ever  from  the  flinty  marge, 

And  down  each  rough  and  cavernous  side, 

Trickle  the  drops  that  bear  their  balm 
From  ferny  bank  and  pasture  wide. 

It  drinketh,  —  drinketh,  —  day  by  day ; 

And  still,  within  its  bosom  deep, 
The  waiting  water,  filtered  clear, 

Doth  in  a  crystal  beauty  sleep. 

Waiting  and  swelling,  till  it  find 

God's  outlet,  long  while  placed  and  planned, 

Whence,  strong  and  jubilant,  it  shall  sweep 
Down,  with  a  song-burst,  o'er  the  land. 

I  don't  think  I  had  any  life  in  particular  in  my 
mind  when  I  said  that.  Certainly,  I  would  n't 
have  you  suppose  it  was  my  own.  And  yet,  my 
own  may  have  looked  so  to  me  in  some  dark  mo 
ment  or  other.  For  I  have  had  my  pinches  and 
pains ;  and  I  have  seen  people  who  were  shut  up 
from  much  of  the  sunlight  that  seems  to  be  every 
where  ;  and  out  of  the  waiting  and  the  wanting 
that  so  I  know  of  comes  the  comfort  that  we  may 
all  take  together. 


INTO  THE  MEANINGS.  51 

Water  is  one  thing.  Then  we  come  up  higher 
and  find  another,  lying  just  above  it ;  penetrating 
everywhere,  yet  more  intimately ;  not  to  be  seen  or 
handled,  only  to  be  breathed  and  felt.  We  are 
born  of  water,  and  of  the  spirit.  There  is  the  life 
that  comes  in  through  the  understanding  —  that 
we  can  stop  and  lay  hold  of,  and  pour  back  and 
forth,  and  put  into  vessels ;  that  is  the  mind-per 
ception.  There  is  also  the  soul-perception,  which 
is  the  breath  of  God;  the  upper  atmosphere,  in 
which  our  finer  being  lives,  and  that  pulses  and 
flows  as  it  lists,  and  we  catch  the  delicate  motion 
and  hear  the  sound  thereof,  but  can  never  tell 
whence  it  comes,  or  whither  it  has  gone.  Yet  out 
of  it  we  die. 

And  in  it  moves  about  us  a  tenderer  and  more 
beautiful  life  than  the  life  of  the  waters.  Winged 
creatures  come  and  go ;  and  there  are  many  sweet 
voices  therein. 

What  does  it  mean,  then,  this  clear,  blue  firma 
ment  ?  What  do  the  birds  mean  ? 

I  lay  on  my  sofa  and  thought  about  it ;  waiting 
for  Emery  Ann  to  bring  me  up  my  tea. 

And  while  I  waited  the  chimney-swifts  were  fly 
ing  about  in  their  quick,  graceful  circles,  and  away 
off  over  the  wood  a  great  hawk  was  flapping  slowly, 


52  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

and  tiny  things  in  bushes  and  branches  were  mak 
ing  their  little  home-flights  and  happy  heart-chirps ; 
and  somehow  the  wide  air,  and  the  sounds,  and  the 
stillness,  and  the  sure  and  beautiful  motion,  —  the 
region  of  life  so  close  and  yet  so  out  of  grasp,  — 
opened  a  strange  sense  to  me ;  a  sense  of  the  near 
and  intangible  things  of  the  spirit. 

Not  a  great  emptiness,  —  untraversable,  —  but 
full  of  movement  and  errand.  Yes,  that  is  what  it 
tells  us.  That  out  and  above  and  beyond  where 
we  can  bodily  go,  God  has  made  things  with  wings, 
that  lift  themselves  in  this  finer  element,  and  go 
straight  and  swift  from  point  to  point,  whither  they 
need  and  whither  He  will.  Out  of  our  vision,  away 
over  forests  and  waters,  to  far-off  places,  and  back 
to  our  side. 

They  are  thoughts,  again,  —  those  other  thoughts, 
more  instant  and  keen,  not  of  the  mind  life,  but  of 
the  soul,  —  that  reach,  and  long,  and  go  forth  and 
divine  their  way  through  the  invisible. 

The  eagles  gather  together  to  that  which  draws 
them,  and  "  the  doves  fly  to  their  windows  ; "  and 
the  little  sparrows,  even,  are  safe ;  for  God  takes 
care  of  them,  and  not  one  shall  fall  to  the  ground 
without  him.  He  also  feedeth  them. 

They  are  affections,  that  find  that  to  which  they 


INTO  THE  MEANINGS.  53 

are  sent,  let  them  forth  from  whence  you  will ;  that 
know  their  climate  and  their  food,  and  their  dear 
and  pleasant  haunts;  and  that  link  the  latitudes 
together. 

Noah  floated  long  upon  the  dark  waters ;  then 
into  the  air  he  sent  forth  a  dove ;  she  came  back  to 
his  heart  at  first,  bearing  no  hope ;  then  she  brought 
him  a  greenness  of  peace ;  and  by  and  by  she  went 
and  stayed. 

So  it  is  after  a  grief.  The  thought  that  goes  out 
comes  back,  a  restless  pain ;  after  a  while  it  brings 
some  leaf  of  healing ;  then  it  finds  the  green  place 
of  its  longing,  and  we  feel  in  ourselves  its  far  and 
sweet  alighting,  and  we  know  that  by  and  by  we 
shall  be  there. 

That  is  the  difference  between  the  thing  and  the 
type  of  it.  The  bird  flies,  and  we  have  no  more 
hold  of  it.  The  thought  goes,  and  something  out 
of  our  own  selves  —  some  real  thing  —  has  met  the 
dawn,  or  has  found  the  mountain,  or  entered  before 
hand  into  the  blessed  summer. 

I  was  so  glad  in  these  things  that  came  to  me  to 
night  ;  so  glad  of  the  steps  and  shades  by  which 
earth  climbs  and  rarefies  till  it  touches  heaven.  It 
seems  as  if  God  brought  us  almost  there ;  thinning 
life  till  it  is  all  but  spirit,  —  touching  its  forms 


54  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

with  a  more  delicate  glory,  from  the  rock  and  the 
water  to  the  air  and  the  light ;  from  the  coarseness 
of  touch  and  taste  to  the  sweet  subtleties  of  sound 
and  odor,  and  the  faint  perceptions  of  something 
possible  beyond  even  these. 

In  a  twilight  like  this,  or  in  the  tender,  early 
morning,  —  when  the  music  is  just  a  breath  in  the 
birds'  throats,  and  the  fragrance  is  something  that 
you  hardly  know  how  you  get,  whether  through 
sense  or  spirit,  —  one  might  seem  to  have  no  choice 
which  world  one  would  waken  into  out  of  the 
beautiful  dream ;  one  is  so  upon  the  threshold. 

When  Jesus  said,  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at 
hand,"  I  don't  think  he  meant  so  much  a  kingdom 
coming,  as  a  kingdomAere. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  "  close  by ; "  that  is 
what  "  at  hand  "  means. 

"  Say  not  there  are  yet  four  months,"  —  or  four 
cycles ;  "  lift  up  your  eyes,  and  look ;  the  fields  are 
white  already ; "  and  the  harvest  of  the  kingdom  is 
ripe,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  world. 

I  was  so  glad  in  these  thoughts  that  I  could  n't 
wait  for  mother  to  come  in,  —  she  had  gone  out, 
by  very  hard  begging  of  mine,  to  drink  tea  with 
Mrs.  Shreve ;  so  when  Emery  Ann  came  up  with 
mine,  that  is,  with  my  fresh  milk  and  my  bread 


INTO  THE  MEANINGS.  55 

and  butter,  and  my  currants  and  raspberries,  red 
and  white,  mixed  in  a  little  glass  dish  and  covered 
with  white  sugar,  —  I  could  n't  help  catching  at 
her.  Besides,  something  else  occurred  to  me  all  in 
a  flash. 

"  Just  look  there,  Emery  Ann,  please  ;  on  that 
little  table  in  the  corner.  See  if  the  book  is  n't 
there  that  Miss  Philena  brought  for  me  the  other 
day,  in  a  green  binding :  '  Thoughts  in  my  Gar 
den,'  —  that  's  it.  Now,  wait  a  minute."  And 
I  held  her  fast  by  a  corner  of  her  apron. 

"  Wait  a  minute  ;  I  don't  believe  a  bit  but  that 
it  will  be  here.  It  ought  to  be." 

I  turned  the  pages  as  quickly  as  I  could  with 
one  hand  ;  I  dared  not  leave  go  with  the  other  of 
Emery  Ann  ;  I  wanted  somebody. 

"  '  Birds  and  other  things  ' !  Wait  a  minute. 
'  Birds  and  all  winged  creatures  correspond  to  '  — 
there,  I  knew  it !  Exactly  the  same  !  Just  as  I 
found  it  out,  my  own  self.  Emery  Ann,  when 
two  people  find  out  the  same  thing,  you  see  it  's 
sure." 

"  Hum !  I  don't  know.  Lots  of  people  have 
found  out  lots  of  mistakes.  Lies,  beside.  And 
stuck  to  'em." 

"  But  not  this  way.     Not  things  that  you  find 


56  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

straight  out,  by  just  looking  at  them.  Emery  Ann, 
I  know  what  the  birds  mean.  And  she  says  so, 
too.  They  're  thoughts.  Things  that  go  —  really 
go  —  where  nothing  else  can.  Heaven  is  just  as 
full  of  goings  and  comings  as  the  sky  is  of  birds. 
There  's  a  way  everywhere ;  for  wings,  or  some 
thing." 

Emery  Ann  always  rubs  everything  down. 

"  Hum  !  "  she  said  again.  "  Like  as  not.  That 
accounts  for  all  sorts  of  flightiness." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

INTO   THE   OLD   AND   THE   NEW. 

WHEN  I  have  once  had  a  thought,  —  of  my  own 
or  one  that  is  brought  to  my  remembrance,  —  it 
keeps  coming  back,  bringing  others  with  it,  —  all 
its  relations.  It  joins  this  with  that,  showing  how 
all  belong  together,  and  illustrate  and  strengthen 
each  other.  The  mind  in  its  working  overlaps 
itself,  like  the  tide,  or  like  the  way  a  little  child 
takes  to  learn  a  verse  or  a  hymn.  Over  and  over, 
one  line ;  then  that,  and  the  next  joined  with  it ; 
then  the  two,  with  a  third.  So  on,  always  begin 
ning  again,  or  back  for  a  little  way.  It  is  the  way 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  out  of  which  one  brings 
the  treasures  new  and  old. 

Living  by  hints.  Since  that  came  into  my  head, 
it  has  helped  everything. 

The  grandest  and  truest  and  sweetest  things  are 
always  hints,  —  no  more.  The  minute  you  try  to 
be  literal  and  explicit  with  them  they  are  gone. 
You  cannot  argue  or  explain  the  things  of  the 


58  PATIENCE  STBON&S  OUTINGS. 

spirit.  The  highest  and  most  intimate  perceptions 
are  glimpses.  Things  said  all  out  are  platitudes  ; 
feeling  analyzed  and  explained  is  dead  before  it  is 
dissected  ;  dead,  and  time  it  was  buried. 

Our  human  love,  and  our  heavenly  faiths,  the 
surest  comforts  of  Christ's  gospel,  hang  themselves 
upon  suggestions. 

Jesus  never  says  all.  He  lets  fall  golden  words, 
that  provide  no  record,  into  the  great  deep  where 
common  words  are  lost ;  he  touches  the  key-note 
of  a  truth  with  a  single  divine  smiting,  and  leaves 
its  circle  of  sound  to  spread ;  only  calling  down 
after  it  into  the  years,  "  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear 
let  him  hear."  It  is  the  secret  of  inspiration ;  the 
difference  between  that  and  common  study  and 
thinking.  It  is  the  justification  of  Moses  before 
the  computers  and  the  classifiers.  And  that  is  just 
what  came  and  joined  itself  to  my  notion  of  the 
int-ings,  —  the  hints. 

I  have  been  reading  lately  among  these  things 
that  are  written  by  the  plummet  and  line  of  science, 
and  that  are  so  full  of  jealous  anxiety  about  the  old 
faiths  that  did  not  wait  for  them. 

The  wonder  to  me  is  what  they  find  to  conflict 
about,  —  these  philosophers  and  theologians.  Why 
the  ones  are  so  indignant  at  Moses,  and  the  others 


INTO  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW.  59 

% 

so  fearful  and  uproused  in  his  behalf  ?  When  he 
never  undertook  —  or  God  by  him  —  anything  at 
all  in  the  direction  of  such  antagonism. 

Inspiration  is  not  science  or  research.  It  is 
even  a  more  glorious  thing.  It  does  not  dig  down 
into  darkness,  carrying  its  torch;  it  reaches  up 
ward  and  grasps  the  very  light  out  of  heaven.  It 
sees  the  red  in  the  sky  while  the  evil  and  adulter 
ous  generations  are  yet  seeking  after  their  signs. 

What  did  it  matter  to  Moses  how  many  strata 
deep  the  old  deposits  of  earth-crust  might  have 
been  in  his  day,  or  what  details  of  life  and  con 
struction  they  were  hereafter  to  reveal  ?  He  went 
away  back  behind  them  all,  into  the  unmade  worlds 
and  the  loving  counsel  of  God.  He  stood  up 
among  the  nations  that  were  worshiping  sun  and 
moon  and  fire  and  beast,  and  cried  out :  "  In  the 
beginning  GOD  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 
Time  was  when  His  life  had  not  yet  been  given, 
when  all  this  matter  of  which  your  heaven  and 
earth,  your  sun  and  moon,  are  made  was  void. 
Only  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  over  the  face  of  it. 
Then,  at  last,  He  said,  "  Let  there  be  light !  " 
And  there  was  light. 

I  wonder  if  Moses  did  not  go  at  one  leap  above 
and  beyond  all  science  in  this,  his  divine  apprehen- 


60  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

sion  ?     If  this  great  hint  of  his  does  not  touch  at  v 
once  the  subtile  inmost  of  the  life  God  gave,  and  | 
continually  gives,  into  his  world  ?     One  breath  of 
his  command,  one  pulse  of  his  will,  and  straight 
way   every   particle   is    luminous   with    presence, 
instinct  with  electric  force. 

Have  they  come  to  anything  nearer  the  awful 
life-secret  than  this?  Have  they  entered  farther 
into  the  holy  place,  in  their  newest  theories  of 
'oebulous  mist,  golden  with  glory,  gathering  and 
revolving  and  flinging  off  into  space  by  the  grand 
primal  energy  which  can  be  only  what  the  prophet 
declares,  by  his  direct  insight,  the  informing  word 
of  God? 

It  was  this  that  Moses  had  to  declare ;  not  any  \ 
account  of  intervening  processes.  What  if  he  had  f 
waited  until  the  last  fossil  was  dug  up  ? 

He  waited  for  nothing  ;  neither  for  geology,  nor 
for  the  measure  or  shape  of  the  planet,  nor  for  the 
boundary  line  of  the  system.  He  talks  superbly  of 
the  heavens  and  the  earth;  of  waters  under  the 
firmament  and  waters  above  the  firmament ;  of  the 
seas  and  of  the  dry  land ;  of  the  gathering  together 
and  the  setting  apart.  He  does  not  go  into  detail. 
He  only  deals  with  the  magnificent  outline.  One 
page  of  a  little  book  holds  all  his  words  about  it 

**""  ^ ^'t^/  "^-f*  'Ut^' 

,  /  or*^+*  fr^&t*.    **<iL&  -  <T^-» 


INTO  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW.  61 

He  sings  his  glorious  song  of  the  creation,  that 
stands  true,  in  the  soul  of  it,  whatever  comes  to  be 
proved  or  overturned  in  circumstance.  He  enu 
merates  the  orders  of  life  and  being,  and  says, 
simply,  "  None  of  these  are  gods.  God  gave  his 
life  into  them  all.  By  separate  thought  he  made 
them  each  to  be.  None  came  but  by  his  act." 
And  after  each  clause  of  the  great  story  that  could 
only  be  a  holy  poem,  after  each  declared  creative 
impulse,  he  repeats  his  refrain:  "And  God  saw 
that  this  also  was  good.  And  the  evening  and  the 
morning  were  the  first "  —  or  the  second,  or  the 
third  — "day." 

There  is  no  absurd  fable  in  this.  There  is 
only  a  grand  hinting  at  precisely  what  the  philo 
sophers  are  proving,  —  the  mighty  order,  and 
succession,  and  patient,  sure  development  of  God's 
work. 

We  are  such  poor,  little,  letter-bound  creatures, 
thinking  only  of  sunrise  and  sunset ;  not  learning, 
even,  what  our  own  day  is  to  us,  of  which  the  earth- 
movement,  the  shine  and  the  shadow,  are  only  the 
types  and  the  correspondence.  When  we  live  true 
days,  —  days  like  God's,  —  making  each  a  step  and 
an  accomplishment,  and  entering  into  his  morning 
and  evening  joy,  —  then  we  shall  know.  We  get 


62  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

faint  glimpses  when  we  have  been  a  little  faithful, 
and  a  great  deal  helped  of  him.  When  there 
comes  a  purpose  with  the  freshness,  and  a  certainty 
of  something  done  with  the  decline  ;  when  the  out 
ward  day  has  its  inward  counterpart-;  when  our 
whole  soul  has  turned  itself  to  its  sun  and  strength 
in  the  heaven,  and  is  on  in  its  orbit  over  a  spiritual 
space. 

After  such  pattern  in  his  own  ineffable  an$  eter 
nal  Life,  He  was  making  our  little  planetary  days. 
What  had  they  to  do  with  measuring  him  ? 

Six  days,  and  then  the  Sabbath.  The  rest  God 
has  in  the  depths  of  his  own  Spirit  over  his  work ; 
the  blessedness  that  returns  upon  him  out  of  his 
giving ;  the  sublime  alternation  in  the  Divine  Na 
ture,  of  which  this  seventh  day,  also,  that  he  gives 
us,  is  a  symbol  and  result. 

For  it  is  true  all  through,  as  everything  is ;  work 
ing  out  from  God  into  the  last  circle  of  his  provi 
dence  ;  it  runs  into  our  literal  weeks  and  days. 
Every  Saturday  night-fall  and  Sunday  dawn  of  a 
busy  life  proves  it,  to  soul  and  body.  It  is  because 
of  the  image  of  Him  in  which  we  are  made  that 
there  is  possible  and  needfid  to  us,  also,  his  own 
glad  peace  ;  his  rest,  and  reflow,  and  gathering 
up.  What  has  this  either,  as  to  himself  and  his 


INTO   THE  OLD  AND   THE  NEW.  63 

mysterious  periods,  to  do  with  our  mere  hours 
and  reckoning? 

It  seems  to  me  as  if  Moses  would  laugh  at  our 
foolish  interpretations  and  disputes ;  as  if  it  could 
hardly  have  occurred  to  him  that  we  would  mistake 
him  so.  It  seems  to  me  he  was  grander  in  his  ig 
norance  and  insight  than  we  are  in  our  little  bits 
of  fact  and  calculation  that  we  have  picked  up  and 
are  continually  rectifying. 

He  stood  with  God,  receiving  of  him  sublime  in 
tuitions  ;  uttering  them  with  lofty  fervor  in  poetic 
speech.  It  was  that  recognition  which  waits  for 
no  slow  learning ;  which  needs  it  not ;  which  makes 
the  fisherman  of  Galilee  able  to  say  to  the  face  of 
Christ,  "  Thou  art  the  Son  of  the  living  God ! " 
And  to  which  the  Lord  makes  answer,  "  Blessed 
art  thou !  For  flesh  and  blood  have  not  revealed 
it  unto  thee,  but  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 
Behold,  this  is  the  rock  whereon  I  will  build  my 
church ;  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  it." 

God  has  forever  built  his  church  on  this.  He 
never  hid  away  his  living  truth,  the  need  of  man, 
in  the  dead  rocks  or  the  deep  earth.  He  gives  it, 
quick  and  warm,  into  the  human  spirit;  it  is  nigh, 
even  in  our  mouths  and  in  our  hearts. 


64  PATIENCE  STRON&S  OUTINGS. 

I  think  the  song  of  Moses  and  his  bold  story  of 
the  Genesis  —  so  daring  in  its  personification,  so 
deeply  and  minutely  true  of  human  spirit  and  life 
in  the  Father's  hands  —  will  stand,  and  will  sound 
glorious  and  interpret  wonderfully  in  the  ears  of 
men,  while  many  a  theory  and  philosophy  shall 
shift  and  crumble.  Because  it  is  behind  all  these  ; 
it  holds  fast  by  the  skirts  of  God's  own  garment ; 
because  it  reads  forward  and  not  backward  ;  it 
looks  from  eternity  down  into  time.  By  and  by, 
with  slow  footsteps,  the  knowledge  of  time  and  the 
record  in  things  will  lead  up  to  it,  and  they  will 
find  themselves  at  one. 

I  think  God  was  good  and  wise  to  give  us  him 
self  first  and  his  story  afterward.  I  sometimes 
wonder  why  these  worshipers  of  fact  do  not  find  a 
fact  as  great  as  any  in  the  existence  and  perpetua 
tion  of  that  which  we  call  the  Scripture  of  Revela 
tion.  That  God  has  not  suffered  what  he  has 
given  into  the  souls  of  men  to  perish  without  a 
sign,  any  more  than  the  trilobites  or  the  remains 
of  the  cave-dwellers.  He  keeps  his  outside  story 
with  care,  and  leads  us  to  it  in  his  own  good 
time,  delighting  our  minds  with  the  knowledge 
of  his  wonders.  He  keeps  also  —  a  living  thing 
among  us  —  the  record  of  the  highest  reach 


INTO  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW.  65 

of  the  soul  after  him,  and  of  his  fullest  inward 

gift. 

Simply  that  the  Bible  is  makes  me  sure  that 
God's  glory  is  in  it. 

Only,  I  know  that  having  given  once  it  is  that 
he  means  to,  and  must  needs,  give  again  ;  and  that 
the  instant  bestowal  must  lighten  upon  the  old ; 
that  the  one  without  the  other  is  dead.  Therefore 
the  dead  do  bury  their  dead.  "In  thy  light," 
only,  "shall  we  see  light." 

We  can  dig  for  fossils  ;  we  must  beg  of  God  for 
himself. 

My  outings  are  getting  to  be  such  sermons ! 

Living  is  a  strange  thing.  If  you  put  it  to-  -i 
gether  just  as  it  is  given  out  it  hardly  looks  as  if 
it  belonged  to  the  same  piece.  It  sounds  positively 
wicked  if  you  tell  of  it.  Dusting  and  divinity, 
prayers  and  pie-crust,  mix  themselves  up  to 
gether.  Joseph's  coat  was  of  many  colors.  So 
are  God's  love  and  gift. 

To-morrow,  perhaps,  I  shall  lay  "Origin  and 
Destiny  "  by,  and  be  making  the  sleeves  of  my  new 
ruffled  sack  that  I  mean  to  look  so  nice  in  ;  and  I 
sha'n't  seem  to  have  any  longer  reach  or  tether 
than  the  few  inches  of  whip-hem  and  cord-gather- 
irig  that  I  shall  be  doing ;  I  shall  like  it  too  ;  and 


66  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

my  whole  day  will  be  taken  up  with  it,  and  if  I 
finish  it  all  I  shall  go  to  bed  with  one  of  my  little 
—  cambric  —  satisfactions. 

Well,  He  does  also  a  great  many  little,  and  a 
great  many  pretty,  things. 

We  cannot  be  too  little  to  be  like  Him ;  nor  so 
great  as  to  work  outside  of  Him. 

I  wonder  when  I  shall  open  this  parcel  that 
Eliphalet  left  for  me  when  he  went  away  ?  It  is 
to  be  "  sometime  when  I  am  particularly  low  in  my 
mind,  and  want  something  to  hearten  me  and  chirk 
me  up."  Eliphalet  admires  to  talk  like  all  the  old 
aunts  and  grandmothers  once  in  a  while,  and  that 
was  the  message  he  sent  out  with  it  by  Gertrude. 
She  said,  in  her  pretty  way,  that  it  was  "  a  fairy 
gift ;  a  nut  to  be  cracked  when  the  time  of  need 
came." 

It  feels  like  a  book.  May  be  it  is  some  little 
picture.  I  like  to  wonder  what  it  is ;  I  don't  know 
but  that  if  I  had  n't  such  a  plenty  of  other  things 
to  keep  me  from  being  down-hearted,  I  might 
"  chirk  up  "  just  on  the  guessing,  and  never  need 
anything  more. 

That  is  such  a  good,  brimful  word,  —  hearten ! 
It  gives  you  the  reason  why.  Nobody  can  be  low 


INTO  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW.  67 

in  their  mind  until  they  have  first  got  low  in  their 
heart. 

But  I  have  n't  wanted  much  chirking  or  hearten 
ing  yet.  I  have  n't  had  the  least  first  bit  of  a 
chance  to  run  down  anywhere. 

So  I  keep  the  little  parcel,  "  till  called  for ;  "  to 
look  at  and  guess  about.  As  long  as  I  don't  open 
it,  it  may  be  anything;  and  it's  always  well  to 
have  the  medicine  on  the  shelf,  and  to  take  an  um 
brella  with  you  to  "  spite  off  the  rain."  As  Emery 
Ann  says. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

"  rORZINO." 

EMERY  ANN  had  killed  a  fly  that  had  been  buzz 
ing  round  her  nose. 

"  There  !  "  she  cried  with  satisfaction,  as  he  fell 
from  between  her  hands,  —  "  there  's  one  less  of 
'em!" 

"  One  less  little  life  in  the  world,"  said  I  hyper- 
sentimentally. 

"  Well,  may  be  he  '11  be  something  better  next 
time,"  said  Emery  Ann. 

"  Do  you  believe  in  that  ?  "  I  asked  her. 

"  Forzino,"  said  she. 

Emery  Ann  was  not  talking  Italian.  It  was  the 
Yankee  which,  being  interpreted,  means,  "  As  far 
as  I  know." 

And  that  is  as  far  as  a  Yankee,  or  anybody  else, 
can  go. 

As  far  as  we  know,  why  should  n't  it  be  ? 

Why  these  pains  of  life  and  death  for  things  for 
which  there  is  to  be  nothing  "  better  next  tune  "  ? 


"  FORZINO."  69 

I  wonder  if  anybody  ever  suggested,  as  a  solution 
of  the  development  question,  the  idea  of  spiritual 
"  selection."  We  hear  enough  of  "  natural  selec 
tion,"  and  of  how  it  may  be  that  whole  races  live 
and  propagate  and  die,  struggling  toward  an  attain 
ment  of  more  perfect  organization,  to  be  realized 
after  they  are  dust  of  fossil. 
.  What  of  the  seed  or  life  itself? 

What  good  does  it  do  the  mollusk  that  there  is 
to  be  a  vertebrate  by  and  by  ?  or  the  monkey  that 
there  are  men  to  come?  Or  men,  in  their  turn, 
that  there  are  to  be  sons  of  God  again  upon  the 
earth  when  their  mistakes  and  half-developments 
are  over? 

What  if  no  life  is  ever  lost  ?  If  God  giveth  it 
a  body,  —  to  every  seed  its  own,  —  as  it  pleaseth 
him,  over  and  over,  up  and  on  ? 

Two  things  stand  right  up  in  the  way. 

Deaths  also ;  over  and  over. 

Forgetfulness. 

But  then,  —  "  forzino,"  again.  How  far  do  we 
know? 

Only  the  dead  can  tell  what  death  has  been.  It 
may  have  been  —  many  times  —  an  ecstasy. 

Emery  Ann's  "  forzino "  set  me  out  on  this 
quest. 


70  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

Pain  only  gets  a  soul  when  it  comes  to  man ; 
only  begins  to  get  something  near  it  when  it  comes 
to  the  orders  nearest  human  in  their  larger  in 
stincts.  To  other  things  it  is  always  a  surprise, 
not  knowledge  and  reason ;  a  surprise  repeated 
from  moment  to  moment  as  long  as  it  lasts.  And 
a  surprise  is  nothing  except  as  you  can  turn  round 
and  look  at  it,  or  expect  another. 

A  dog  or  a  horse  will  cringe  and  howl,  or  quiver 
and  snort  with  the  terror  which  is  the  spiritual 
pain,  when  a  danger  that  can  suggest,  approaches. 
A  moth  will  burn  itself  half  to  cinder,  and  struggle 
back  with  its  last  strength  into  the  flame  again. 

Suffering  that  is  all  of  the  body  may  not  be,  in 
our  way  of  appreciation,  suffering  at  all. 

A  man  knows  what  is  the  matter  with  him. 
That  is  the  trouble.  He  carries  back  the  nerve- 
report  to  the  centre  of  a  grand  and  intense  vitality. 
He  has  eaten  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  that  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  garden.  The  higher  the  civiliza 
tion  the  greater  the  dread  of  injury  and  death. 
The  Chinaman  and  the  savage  have  little,  or  none 
at  all. 

Instantaneous  pain  is  said  to  be  no  pain.  There 
is  neither  expectation  nor  afterthought.  A  sudden, 
terrible  hurt  benumbs  itself.  It  is  too  swift  and 


"  FORZINO."  71 

strong.  We  do  not  know  what  has  happened  to 
us.  It  is  after  we  begin  to  find  out,  and  the  mind 
takes  part,  —  remembers,  anticipates,  imagines, 
compares,  watches,  —  that  the  agony  begins.  It  is 
a  thing  of  the  spirit. 

It  may  be  that  we  only,  who  can  make  of  it  a 
sacrament,  are  baptized  into  the  full  intimacy  of 
suffering.  It  may  be  that  for  any  creature  who 
can  approach  our  knowledge  of  it,  it  is  by  just  so 
much,  in  them  as  in  us,  the  working  toward  a  "  far 
more  exceeding  glory." 

God  is  merciful.  He  takes  care  of  his  own  mys 
teries.  He  gives  to  nothing  more  than  it  can  bear, 
or  more  than  shall  be  good. 

Perhaps  the  chief  wonder,  after  a  great  physical 
hurt,  is  that  it  had  not  been  harder  to  endure. 

There  are  blessed  laws  of  alleviation  ;  bounds  be 
yond  which  are  insensibility  and  rest ;  possibly, 
even,  as  heat  and  cold  at  their  excessive  points  are 
one,  —  as  great  joy  is  a  pang,  and  deep  grief  a 
strange  blessedness,  —  there  may  be  also  an  agony 
to  rapture,  known  only  to  them  who  are  taken  into 
the  mystery.  There  is  always  circumstance  ;  the 
special  providing  for  each  experience,  which  is  never 
forgotten ;  that  which  makes  us  say  afterward,  "  If 
it  had  not  been  just  so  ;  if  there  had  been  a  little 


72  PATIENCE  STEONG'S  OUTINGS. 

more,  or  a  little  different !  "  It  is  never  more  ;  it 
is  never  different ;  it  is  always  just  what  we  can 
bear. 

God  is  gracious,  not  to  our  souls  only,  but  to 
our  bodies  ;  "  not  suffering  any  to  be  tempted  "  — 
tried,  proven  —  "  beyond  that  they  are  able  ;  "  but 
making  always  "  some  way  of  escape." 

We  can  leave  it  all  with  Him. 

If  the  "whole  creation  travaileth  in  pain  to 
gether,"  it  is  surely  "  for  the  glory  which  shall  be 
revealed." 

But  then,  besides,  the  forgetfulness ;  the  blank, 
behind  and  before ! 

If  life  has  climbed  so,  why  should  we  not  re 
member  the  steps  ? 

Perhaps  we  shall  come  to  it,  when  all  the  glory 
is  revealed.  Perhaps  the  further  we  go,  —  the 
more  we  include,  —  the  further  we  shall  remember 
back. 

Meantime,  at  this  moment,  we  do  know  what 
nothing  less  than  human  can.  We  can  divine  the 
life  that  is  below  us  ;  all  its  meanings  are  ours. 
The  insect  in  the  sunshine  has,  perhaps,  in  its  own 
little  atom  of  consciousness,  no  more  positive  sensa 
tion  of  its  separate  joy,  than  the  man  has,  looking 
on ;  reading  it  so,  and  bringing  it  back  for  com- 


"  FOEZINO."  73 

parison  to  some  sense  of  his  own,  included  in  his 
larger  being.  Somewhere  in  him  is  just  this  very 
pleasantness :  where  did  he  get  it  ?  The  insect 
knows  nothing  of  his  gladness. 

Somewhere  in  him  —  the  man  —  is  the  flight  and 
freedom  of  the  bird  in  the  air ;  the  cool  delight  of 
the  fish  in  the  sea-depths;  the  bright,  brisk  busi 
ness  of  the  squirrel  in  the  still,  green  wood.  He 
knows  it  all. 

Why  does  the  child  love  better  than  anything 
the  stories  of  little  lives  like  these;  the  pretty 
fables  about  dormice  and  lizards,  ants  and  butter 
flies,  bees  and  robins  ? 

I  don't  pretend  to  declare  why ;  I  don't  assert 
anything;  I  only  say,  as  Emery  Ann  does, — 
"  forzino !  " 

Above,  they  know  us  as  we  know  these.  We 
shall  come,  sometime,  to  know  even  as  we  are 
known.  Then  we  shall  hold  it — perhaps  remember 
it^all. 

I  said  something  of  this  to  Emery  Ann.  Not  as 
I  have  said  it  here,  but  just  in  the  way  of  common 
talk. 

"You  see,"  I  suggested,  as  to  the  question  of 
pain,  "  everything  is  n't  always  as  bad  as  it  seems. 
What  we  have  never  tried  ourselves,  we  cannot  tell 


74  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

about.  Doctors  say  that  a  good  deal  that  looks 
like  terrible  suffering  —  spasms,  and  such  things 
—  may  be  mere  muscular  action." 

"That's  very  comfortin'  —  to  the  doctors,"  said 
Emery  Ann.  "  They  've  tried  'em,  perhaps.  But 
it  don't  take  a  doctor  to  tell  that  things  show  for 
more  'n  they  are.  Why,  bare  ugliness  does.  Every 
body  gets  along  with  their  own ;  but  I  've  noticed 
folks,  —  I  don't  mind  homeliness,  now,  any  more 
than  I  do  kitchen  chairs,  if  they  are  clean  and 
whole,  and  set  straight ;  but  I  can't  bear  faces  that 
seem  to  want  clearin'  up,  —  well,  with  mouths,  say, 
that  you  'd  think  they  'd  hate  to  keep  their  own 
tongues  inside  of.  And  as  to  noises  and  fuss,  I  've 
seen  a  piece  of  work  made  over  takin'  a  nap,  with 
jerkin'  and  snorin',  that  you  'd  say  was  fits  if  you  'd 
never  come  across  it  before.  I  guess  it's  pretty 
near  right,  most  of  it ;  things  are  made  frightful 
that  we  'd  better  try  to  keep  clear  of.  At  any  rate, 
we  can't  fix  it  now,  if  it  is  n't." 

Emery  Ann  is  never  uneasy  about  anything  that 
she  can't  "  fix ; "  what  she  can,  she  has  no  peace 
of  mind  with  till  it  is  done.  She  does  n't  fix  her 
paragraphs,  though ;  she  drops  in  her  prepositions 
and  her  objective  cases  just  when  she  happens  to 
get  hold  of  them,  and  her  relative  pronouns  set  up 


"  FORZINO."  75 

for  themselves  in  sentences  of  their  own,  whether 
they  ever  had  any  antecedents  or  not. 

Aunt  Hetty  Maria  has  been  down  to  stay  a  fort, 
night  with  us.  She  and  mother  have  been  so  com 
fortable  together. 

I  don't  think  there  is  really  anything  nicer  than 
f  N*  old  ladies  ;  two  together,  especially. 

The  white  caps,  and  the  spectacles,  and  the  slow, 
gentle  ways  that  people  get  when  they  are  old,  and 
the  Sabbath-peace  that  they  sit  down  in,  and  the 
neighborliness  of  souls  that  have  lived  so  many 
self-same  years  on  the  earth,  and  that  may  expect 
to  begin  young  again  so  near  together,  —  all  this 
that  is  in  mother's  window,  now,  behind  the  larch 
boughs,  is  such  a  really  beautiful  thing  I 

I  am  afraid  we  are  losing  our  old  ladies  out  of 
New  England,  just  as  we  are  losing  our  peaches ; 
the  finest  flavor  of  autumn  time.  Nobody  seems  to 
realize  it.  People  are  so  taken  up  with  looking  for  fT=t*vv*K  , 

the  coming  woman  that  they  forget  all  about  the 

x  Q 

going  one. 

For  that  matter,  we  are  in  danger  of  losing  our  ( 
young  ladies  too.     At  first  they  won't  let  them 
selves  be,  any  more  than  at  last  they  will  let  them 
selves  go,  as  they  were  meant  to.    So  that  freshness 
and  simpleness,  —  gentle  and  beautiful  fading, — • 


#° 

T6  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

by  and  by  there  will  neither  of  them  be  seen,  if 


*"\*$i 

V<« 


things  go  on;  but  in  their  stead  one  universal, 


melancholy  fadge  and  wrinkle,  from  sixteen  to 
sixty. 

Women  used,  at  thirty-five  or  so,  to  put  on  mod 
est,  delicate,  submissive  little  caps ;  and  then  they 
could  grow  gray  or  bald  under  them  without  a  sep 
arate  agony  for  every  hair ;  now,  when  the  locks 
bleach,  instead  of  being  accepted  and  worn,  in  their 
beautiful  whiteness,  as  the  light  of  heaven  touching 
upon  one's  head,  they  are  Mrs.  S.  A.  Aliened ;  and 
when  they  thin,  —  ah,  worse  contingency  I  —  they 
are  deployed  painfully  and  insufficiently  over  the 
needful  space,  and  a  satire  of  unaccounted-for 
abundance  pinned  on  behind  or  atop. 

People  used  to  find  out  ways  of  mellowing  and 
sobering  in  their  dress,  too,  as  the  woods  begin  to 
do  in  September,  and  so  have  their  own  especial 
beauty  as  well  as  the  green  June  hers.  There  were 
things  once  that  were  "  too  young  "  for  middle  age 
to  bedizen  itself  with.  And  there  were  things  also, 
just  as  pretty  in  their  time,  that  young  girls  had  to 
grow  to. 

I  won't  say  anything  about  manners ;  they 
can't  be  peeled  off,  or  mucilaged  on ;  what  the 
soul  puts  forth,  will  be ;  and  if  it  does  n't  put 


"FORZINO."  77 

forth,  —  well,  we  lose  our  peaches  and  our  golden 
leaves. 

Here  it  is  ;  women  may  choose,  —  this  or  that  ; 
they  must  choose,  and  take  the  consequences. 

They  may  ripen   their   beautiful  elder  woman 
hood,  fair  with   its  quiet  and  content,  noble  and 
sweet  with  its  larger  life  and  loving,  that  gives  us 
at  last  the  real,  dear  old  lady,  and  without  which  /e^/x  ffyj 
the  dear  old  lady  can  never  be  ;  or  they  may  hold  -^t^ceo  . 
on  desperately  as  old  girls,  and  wrinkle  up  just  as  5vnt/" 
they   are  ;  that   way  makes   the   Mrs.   Skewtons.t^  5»t*04  3f,  g-. 


You  can't  have  results  without  processes  ;  you 
have  got  to  make  up  your  mind  deliberately,  when 
you  come  to  the  crest-line  of  life,  in  what  fashion 


• 


sv  s*tj£**-**- 

you  will  go  down  into  the  years.   '   *p 

There  is  a  time,  no  doubt,  when  it  seems  sad  and 
hard  ;  when  the  path  first  turns,  and  the  eastward 
heaven  of  youth  lies  behind  the  hill  ;  when  the 
glad  little  brooks  begin  to  run  the  other  way,  in 
stead  of  leaping  to  meet  you  ;  but  go  on,  like  one 
of  God's  women  ;  it  shall  be  an  easy  and  tender 
slope  under  your  feet  ;  and  the  lowering  sun  shall 
shine  upon  your  steadfast  face  to  glorify  it,  and  at 
the  foot  is  the  broad,  sweet  valley,  and  the  river 
of  your  full,  deep  peace. 

There  is  where  my  dear  little  mother  has  helped 


78  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

me  so.  It  is  beautiful  going  on  just  after  her. 
And  when  I  sit  and  look  at  the  two  there  in  her 
window,  with  their  work  and  their  caps  and  their 
cosiness,  and  hear  them  say  to  each  other  what  a 
little  while  ago  it  seems,  —  the  time  before  their 
lives  began  to  run  apart,  —  it  is  an  outing  that  I 
can't  get  any  other  way ;  a  reaching  on,  by  some 
thing  like  heaven's  own  counting,  over  the  years, 
to  the  time  when  nothing  shall  seem  far  back  or 
away,  or  tedious  to  have  been  borne  ;  and  heaven 
itself  shall  be  the  nearest  of  all. 

I  read  them  my  thinkings  about  Pain  and 
Change,  when  I  had  written  them  down. 

"  Yes,"  said  Aunt  Hetty  Maria.     "  If  only  God  ; 
made  all  the  pain,  and  gave  it  to  us.     But  what 
about  the  pains  we  have  earned?     The  pains  of 
our  sins  ?  " 

Mother  spoke  out,  then  ;  quick,  before  I  could. 

"  Why,  Hetty  Maria,  the  thief  got  that  an 
swered  for  us.  And  the  Lord  gave  him  part  of 
his  own  peace,  and  promised  him  Paradise." 

The  cross  of  Love  is  close  beside  the  cross  of 
Sin. 

Jesus  hung  between  the  malefactors. 

They  "  knew  not  what  they  did ; "  God  knew, 
and  meant  it  so. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

INTO    DARK   CLOSETS    AND   NEIGHBOR-HOUSES. 

"  DON'T  ever  do  that,"  said  Aunt  Hetty  Maria. 
"  Carry  your  candle  as  straight  as  you  can,  but 
never  go  prowling  back  into  dark  closets  to  look 
after  mischief  that  you  have  n't  done." 

"  It 's  clear  fidget,  I  know,"  said  mother ;  "  but 
I  've  done  it  many  a  time  myself." 

I  had  been  looking  for  something  in  the  little 
clothes-room.  I  knew  perfectly  well  that  my 
candle  had  n't  snapped  while  I  was  there,  and  that 
I  had  n't  held  it  near  anything ;  and  yet,  after  I 
brought  it  back  to  mother's  room,  and  gave  her 
the  roll  of  linen  she  wanted,  I  went  quietly  to  the 
closet  again,  and  shut  myself  in,  in  the  dark,  and 
looked.  When  I  came  back  the  second  time  and 
sat  down,  Aunt  Hetty  Maria  said  that. 

"  Don't  do  it,"  she  repeated.  "  Clear  fidget  is 
the  worst  thing  you  can  give  up  to.  It  '11  come  back 
at  times  when  you  can't  satisfy  yourself.  It 's  a 
way  you  get  into,  and  it  '11  follow  you  up.  Don't 


80  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

get  out  of  bed  to  see  if  you  have  locked  the  door 
when  you  know  there  is  n't  one  chance  in  a  hun 
dred  that  you  have  n't.  Don't  pull  your  letter 
open  to  see  if  the  money  is  safe  and  right,  when 
you  know  you  had  it  in  your  hand  to  put  in  and  it 
can't  be  anywhere  else.  Don't  keep  making  crazy 
dives  into  your  pocket  and  bags,  to  see  if  your 
purse  and  your  keys  are  there,  after  you  've 
started  on  your  journey,  and  you  can't  help  it 
if  they  ain't.  It's  an  awful  habit,  I  tell  you. 
You  '11  go  back  into  actions  and  reasons  and  hap 
penings,  just  so;  into  trouble,  and  sickness,  and 
death  too.  Looking  after  what  never  was  in  'em  ; 
and  doubting  what  you  know  there  certainly  was. 
I  tell  you,  for  I  know." 

Aunt  Hetty  Maria  had  had  troubles  in  her  life, 
notwithstanding  the  silk  gown  and  the  white  caps, 
and  the  looking-up-to  of  all  Dearwood.  There 
were  things  she  was  n't  sure  she  had  n't  made  mis 
takes  in,  though  she  was  a  woman  who  had  always 
tried  thoroughly  to  do  her  duty.  Perhaps  in 
some  other  place  I  shall  say  more  of  what  I  know 
about  it.  I  understood  enough  about  it  then,  to 
feel  that  she  spoke  out  of  a  deep  place,  and  that 
the  strong  sense  that  advised  me  against  the  "  clear 
fidgets  "  had  had  sore  battles  to  fight  against  them, 


DARK  CLOSETS  AND  NEIGHBOB-HOUSES.     81 

before  it  stood  up  in  her  so,  commanding  them  all 
down. 

"  If  I  had  my  life  to  live  over  again,  there  's  no 
rule  I  'd  lay  down  for  myself  firmer.  And  that 's 
why  I  speak  to  you." 

As  if  I  had  my  life  to  live  —  at  thirty-eight  I 

And  yet  as  if  I  had  n't ! 

I  think,  sometimes,  we  don't  any  of  us  find  out 
how  to  live  till  we  have  pretty  well  used  up  — • 
spoiled,  perhaps,  —  one  life. 

Did  anybody  ever  knit  a  perfect  stocking,  right 
off,  at  the  first  learning?  Isn't  the  first  experi 
ment  a  tangle,  more  or  less,  of  dropped  stitches, 
run  all  through,  or  twisted  in  the  picking  up ;  of 
puckers  and  stretches,  —  unpremeditated  and  mis 
placed  widenings  out  and  narro  wings  in  ? 

Are  n't  there  patient  eyes  over  the  needles,  per 
haps  in  our  life  learnings  ?  Is  all  the  yarn  spoiled 
in  conquering  the  stitch?  Are  we  to  wear  our 
first  poor  work,  inevitably  and  always  ?  Or  when, 
out  of  the  knowledge  gained  at  it,  we  can  accom 
plish  a  better,  shall  it  not  be  given  us  to  do  and 
to  possess,  and  the  old  puckers  be  quietly  un 
raveled  for  us  and  laid  away  out  of  our  sight  ?  i 

If  mother  and  Aunt  Hetty  Maria  give  me  loving 
and  watchful  counsel  at  thirty-eight,  looking  upon 


82  PATIENCE  STRONG' S  OUTINGS. 

all  these  years  of  mine  as  a  mere  "setting  up," 
how  will  the  good  angels,  out  of  their  deep  eternity 
and  its  holy  wisdoms,  look  at  theirs  ? 

The  very  calm  and  beauty  that  sits  upon  them 
now,  —  is  it  not  the  smoothing  out  for  a  fair  and 
glad  beginning  again  ? 

"  Don't  go  back  into  the  dark  closets !  " 
It  was  a  dear,  bright  word  to  me.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  word  that  will  be  said  to  us  in  heaven,  when  we 
come  out  into  the  light  there  that  is  fulfilling  and 
absolving  love.  Perhaps  we  shall  be  comforted 
and  forgiven  beyond  what  we  can  think  or  hope. 

Rose  Noble  came  in  this  morning. 

I  think  it  is  one  of  the  comforts  of  not  being 
very  rich  people,  that  your  friends  talk  out  to  you 
more,  of  any  little  plans  or  perplexities  they  may 
have,  and  with  which  money,  as  the  world  runs, 
must  necessarily  have  so  much  to  do. 

Whether  the  old  dress  is  worth  making  over ; 
what  sort  of  carpet  would  turn  out  the  best  and 
cheapest ;  or,  if  the  dress  is  quite  worn  out,  or  the 
carpet  can't  be  had,  — the  want  and  the  way  to 
bear  it.  They  will  speak  of  these  things,  which 
are  the  day's  burden  or  interest,  sure  of  your  sym 
pathy;  sure,  also,  that  they  canj,  by  no  distant 

<Jr^f 


DARK  CLOSETS  AND  NEIGHBOR-HOUSES.     83 

possibility,  be  seeming  to  dream  of  anything  else. 
It  is  the  comfort  the  poor  and  the  moderately  well- 
off  have  together ;  and  which  the  rich,  busy  only 
with  spending,  or  suspicious  of  wishfulness,  are 
shut  out  from. 

I  know  so  much  about  Rose  Noble  and  her 
mother  ;  it  is  quite  as  if  their  lives  were  added  on 
to  mine.  Lives  that  open  into  each  other  so  are 
like  houses  with  a  door  between. 

Is  n't  that  an  outing  ? 

I  think,  all  up  and  down  the  heavenly  streets, 
they  build  their  dwellings  so.  I  think,  from  God 
unto  "  the  least  of  these,"  spirits  stand  open,  one  to 
another,  and  world  to  world.  "  I  am  the  Door," 
says  the  Lord.  "  By  me  ye  shall  go  in  and  out 
and  find  pasture."  "  That  they  also  may  be  one 
in  us,  as  I  in  thee,  and  thou  in  me." 

I  am  glad  to  think  we  can  begin  it  here. 

I  know  all  about  them,  —  the  Nobles ;  their 
plans  and  their  makings  out ;  what  Rose  has  done, 
and  what  she  has  laid  out  for  herself  to  do  ;  and 
what  the  hope  of  her  life  is,  after  that. 

The  hope  began  when  she  was  teaching  school  in 
western  Ohio.  She  met  Robert  Haile  there,  a  man 
working  with  an  object  in  his  life  as  well ;  a  debt 
to  pay  back  before  he  can  begin  to  count  for  him- 


84  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

self.  When  he  can  do  that,  he  will  not  be  afraid 
to  take  a  wife  and  count  for  her  also. 

I  said  I  knew  all  about  Rose.  That  was  true ; 
as  to  Robert,  I  don't  know  all ;  not  quite  all  that 
she  does ;  and  there  is  a  something  which  Rose 
herself  does  not  fully  know  yet,  but  for  which  she 
waits  till  he  shall  have  it  all  to  tell.  He  is  thirty 
years  old,  and  it  is  a  story  of  his  early  youth.  A 
dark  closet,  perhaps,  where  he  did  leave  something 
smouldering.  But  she  is  not  afraid.  She  knows 
him  as  he  is. 

Rose  has  kept  school  ever  since  she  was  sixteen 
years  old  ;  what  she  has  determined  to  do  before 
she  ever  marries  or  "  counts  up  "  in  any  way  for 
herself,  is  to  buy  the  little  house  for  her  mother 
that  they  live  in  now.  She  has  got  thijee  hundred 
dollars  more  to  save  to  do  it.  That  does  n't  seem 
much  towards  the  price  of  a  house,  but  it  is  a  little 
one,  and  she  has  saved  it  all  by  fifties  and  hun 
dreds,  out  of  her  school-keeping,  from  year  to  year. 
In  the  mean  while  they  have  to  live ;  and  things 
wear  out ;  and  Rose  won't  let  them  grow  too 
shabby,  to  spoil  so  the  pretty  idea  of  the  home  she 
is  working  to  keep  for  good  and  all. 

So  it  was  the  sitting-room  carpet  that  was  worry 
ing  her  now. 


DAEK  CLOSETS  AND  NEIGHBOR-HOUSES.     85 

"  They  are  so  dear,  you  see.  It  will  cost  forty- 
five  dollars.  I  don't  talk  to  mother  about  it ;  I  've 
come  to  you.  If  I  do  make  up  my  mind  to  get  it, 
it  must  seem  easy,  or  she  would  n't  take  any  com 
fort  in  it.  Patience,  I  wonder  if  there  's  always  a 
prophecy  in  names.  There  certainly  was  in  yours ; 
and  in  Emery  Ann's ;  how  do  you  suppose  mine 
happened  ? " 

"  Rose  —  Noble,"  I  said  slowly ;  "  why  should  n't 
it  have  happened  ?  " 

I  thought  of  her  fresh,  sweet  nature,  and  of  the 
something  deep  and  grand  there  is  in  it  also,  to 
which  the  freshness  and  sweetness  are  a  mere 
outward  adding.  The  born  name,  and  the  given 
name ;  they  are  precisely  as  they  should  be. 

"  It  makes  you  think  of  the  golden  old  times," 
said  Rose.  "  Of  the  full  pouches,  and  the  princely 
givings.  I  wish  there  were  a  magic  in  my  name. 
I  wish  whenever  it  were  spoken  a  real  rose-noble 
might  drop  down.  Then  I  should  n't  have  to 
count  yards  and  shillings.  Then,  you  see,  —  O 
Patience,  it  might  be  nearly  here,  the  time  we  're 
waiting  for !  " 

I  saw  that  something  more  than  common  was  on 
Rose's  mind.  I  did  n't  want  to  ask  ;  and  I  did  n't 
want  to  interrupt,  if  she  chose  to  say  more ;  so  I  sat 
silent. 


86  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

"  He  might  come  this  fall ;  his  work  is  nearly 
done.  I  think  he  will  come.  But  I  can't  possibly 
be  ready  with  my  part.  I  must  leave  mother  and 
Katie  comfortable,  and  you  see  I  do  want  lots  of 
little  things  myself,  —  besides  the  big  ones.  Pa 
tience, —  if  it  's  one  ridiculous  thing  more  than 
another,  just  this  minute,  —  I  'm  such  a  goose,  — 
it  's  —  a  band  of  back  hair !  " 

I  did  n't  think  Rose  was  a  goose. 

I  looked  at  her  pretty  head,  with  its  bright  hair, 
not  very  long,  —  she  had  had  a  fever  from  over 
work  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  and  it  had  been  cut 
short,  —  and  so  fine  that  its  real  thickness  hardly 
told ;  so  that  although  when  she  brushed  it  out  it 
was  light  and  full  and  shining,  and  looked  ever  so 
much,  it  would  compress  itself  with  the  least  little 
twist,  like  a  skein  of  floss,  and  show  for  nothing. 

I  did  n't  blame  her  a  bit,  when  other  girls  were 
wearing  whole  manufactures  of  hair -work  that 
hardly  let  the  original  foundation  betray  itself  at 
all,  as  to  what  it  was  or  was  not,  for  wishing  just 
for  a  little  more  like  hers,  to  make  the  story  good, 
as  it  was  really  meant  to  be,  and  might  be,  by  and 
by.  And  Dr.  Haile  coming  before  long,  at  least 
to  see  her. 

And  yet  I  do,  on  principle,  hate  false  hair. 


DARK  CLOSETS  AND  NEIGHBOR-HOUSES.     87 

Only,  it  is  a  thing  to  wear  now,  as  much  as  caps 
or  bonnets ;  and  everybody  knows.  Indeed,  you 
have  to  wear  it  instead  of  bonnets,  or  else  look  so 
scooped  out. 

I  don't  know  where  the  line  is.  A  great  deal 
is  bad  and  frivolous  and  extravagant  and  worldly- 
minded  ;  but  a  little,  —  just  what  Rose  Noble 
wanted  to  make  her  head  graceful  and  pretty, 
somewhat  after  the  taste  of  the  time,  —  well,  I  give 
it  up,  as  I  have  to  give  up  many  puzzles ;  things 
that  begin  blamelessly  enough,  but  end  all  wrong, 
and  carry  the  world  by  the  ears  into  all  sorts  of 
snarls. 

Anyway,  I  don't  think  Rose  Noble  was  so  very 
silly.  And  I  told  her  so. 

But  then,  she  could  n't  spend  ten  dollars  for  it. 
That  ended  the  matter. 

It  was  only  a  wish,  given  up  to  stronger  and 
dearer  claims.  If  that  were  the  settling  of  such 
points,  always !  I  suppose  in  that  case,  though, 
there  would  be  precious  little  back  hair  worn,  ex 
cept  what  grew.  And  we  should  all  look  well 
enough. 

I  think,  very  likely,  there  are  moral  questions 
tliat  can't  be  generalized.  Special  decisions  must 
make  up  the  broad  result  and  answer.  If  every- 


88  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

body  marks  their  own  inch,  the  line  will  be  drawn 
all  round  the  world.  Up  and  down,  perhaps,  like 
an  isothermal ;  but  it  will  be  there,  as  true  as  con 
science  or  science  can  make  it. 

That  reminds  me.  I  was  thinking  of  that  word, 
"  conscience,"  the  other  day.  Of  the  "  con  "  of  it. 
"Together."  "With."  Together  with  whom? 
What  makes  conscience  different  from  other  know 
ing  ?  What  but  God's  knowledge  joined  to  ours  ? 
The  very  contact  of  the  human  and  Divine  ? 

Rose  Noble  laughed,  with  a  tear  in  her  eye,  at 
her  own  silliness ;  but  it  was  very  pathetic  to  me. 
So  many  "little  things,  —  besides  the  big  ones," 
were  wanting  in  her  young  life,  of  which  other 
careless  lives  were  full. 

I  was  quite  sad  about  it  after  she  had  gone.  I 
sat  still  half  an  hour,  thinking  it  over  and  over. 
Some  people  had  aunts  and  uncles,  if  not  fathers 
and  mothers,  who  could  give  them  the  little  embel 
lishments  and  opportunities  of  youth.  Even  I, 
more  than  half  as  old  again,  and  past  caring  for 
much  of  these  outside  things,  had  Eliphalet  and 
Gertrude  to  be  thoughtful  for  me  when  it  would  n't 
do  for  me  to  be  thoughtful  or  wishful  for  myself ; 
to  give  me  a  new  pin  at  Christmas,  and  a  silk  dress 
on  a  birthday,  or  when  they  went  shopping  in  New 


DARK  CLOSETS  AND  NEIGHBOR-HOUSES.     89 

York ;  even  to  ask  me  —  if  I  had  n't  broken  my 
bones  and  blundered  out  of  it  —  to  go  to  Europe 
with  them. 

I  could  think  of  so  many  people  who  wanted 
what  they  could  n't  possibly  get,  and  nobody  would 
be  likely  to  give  them  as  long  as  they  lived.  Mrs. 
Shreve,  who  was  "  worrying  through  the  summer  " 
with  an  old  cooking-stove  that  spoiled  all  her  cake, 
and  would  n't  heat  her  flat-irons  ;  Mrs.  Noble  and 
Rose,  wanting  to  carpet  their  sitting-room  and  put 
new  curtains  in  the  best  bedroom ;  and  obliged  to 
choose  between  the  two  ;  people  poorer  than  these, 
with  real  suffering  wants,  all  around  us ;  oh,  what 
a  wanting  world  it  was ! 

I  did  n't  know  as  outings  into  such  a  world,  un 
less  one  could  go  with  Haroun  Al  Easchid  power, 
were  worth  having,  after  all. 

All  at  once,  I  caught  myself  up. 

"  I  never  shall  have  a  better  chance ! "  I  said, 
out  loud.  "  Unless  —  something  should  happen 
that  would  take  the  heart  wholly  out  of  every 
thing.  I  truly  believe  I  'm  just  about  down-hearted 
enough." 

And  so  I  went  and  got  the  packet,  which  I  had 
fairly  forgotten  since  I  had  been  able  to  be  about 
the  house. 


90  PATIENCE  STEONG'S  OUTINGS. 

It  was  n't  much  to  open  ;  it  was  soon  untied. 

A  little  note  from  Eliphalet,  and  —  two  little 
common  blue-covered  books. 

An  account,  opened  at  the  Third  National  Bank 
of  Boston,  with  a  deposit  of  three  thousand  dollars 
to  the  credit  of  Patience  Strong ! 

And  a  cheque-book,  to  draw  the  money  out  with. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

INTO  THE  MIDDLES. 

THAT  was  nice  of  Eliphalet.  And  so  knowing. 
So  much  better  than  a  certificate  of  stock,  to  draw 
a  dividend  on  twice  a  year,  and  never  feel  the  full 
three  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  abundance  unless 
I  should  happen  to  live  some  eight  or  ten  years 
longer,  be  lucky  in  my  shares,  and  keep  a  running 
account  in  my  head,  in  a  "  House  that  Jack  built " 
fashion,  of  the  extra  good  it  had  done  me.  It 
was  as  much  better  as  fifty  coppers,  all  one's  own, 
to  spend  used  to  be  than  the  rare  silver  half  dollar 
given  to  "  lay  by."  It  was  a  clear  piece  of  citron, 
to  eat  right  up,  instead  of  waiting  for  it  in  little 
bits,  cooked  and  spoiled,  in  the  cake.  It  is  so 
delightful,  once  in  a  while,  not  to  mind  the 
proper  way,  or  be  wise  and  prudent,  but  to  be 
as  foolish  and  happy  and  improper  as  one  pleases. 
Eliphalet  remembers  old  tunes,  and  knows  that 
we  don't  outgrow,  but  only  overgrow,  many  things. 
Especially  we  women. 


92  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

"  It  would  have  cost  me  that,  and  more,"  —  the 
trip  to  Europe  for  which  I  substituted  my  trip 
down  the  trammel  staircase,  —  so  he  wrote  in  his 
note.  "Therefore,  do  just  what  you  like  with  it. 
Invest  it,  come  out  to  Europe  after  us,  or  spend  it 
all  in  gimp  and  sugar-plums." 

Now,  then,  could  n't  I  have  outings  ? 

Could  I,  though  ?  Just  where  I  most  wanted  to 
go  ?  Into  wishes  and  wants,  —  into  hopes  and 
troubles  ?  Into  Mrs.  Shreve's  kitchen,  with  a  new 
Perfect  Rapture  cooking-stove  and  a  man  to  set  it 
up  ?  Into  Mrs.  Noble's  parlor  and  bedroom,  with 
carpet  and  curtains  ? 

When  I  came  to  think  of  it,  I  'd  got  the  lever, 
but  I  was  n't  so  sure  of  a  place  to  plant  it,  — 
without  hurting  anybody. 

Not  right  down  on  any  quick,  tender  pride,  or 
delicate  self-respect  and  independence.  That 
would  n't  do. 

I  must  take  care  that  my  dollars  did  n't  get  in 
my  way. 

First,  I  made  mother  solemnly  promise  never  to 
tell,  —  until  I  did. 

Then  I  lay  awake  the  best  part  of  three  nights, 
plotting  and  planning.  Taking  my  share  of  the 
world's  skein  to  unravel ;  the  how  to  make  ends 


IZVTO  THE  MIDDLES.  93 

meet.  What  everything  and  every  soul  is  busy 
about,  one  way  and  another,  from  the  least  to  the 
Highest ;  from  the  bringing  together  of  the  grub 
and  the  green  leaf  to  the  lifting  of  men's  souls  up 
into  the  Heart  of  God. 

There  is  this  and  that ;  cotton  on  one  side  of  the 
world,  machines  on  the  other  ;  —  coffee  there,  dry 
goods  and  iron  and  Yankee  notions  here ;  men, 
women  and  children  there,  starved  and  over 
crowded,  work  and  wide  lands  out  here,  and 
yonder. 

There  are  the  homely  "two  ends,"  income  and 
outgo  ;  there  is  money  in  pockets,  want  in  bodies 
and  souls  ;  there  is  a  word  to  say,  and  an  ear  strain 
ing  to  hear  it;  the  world  is  running  round  and 
round.  It  is  in  great  and  small,  grave  and  gro 
tesque  ;  the  kitten  after  its  own  tail ;  the  baby  try 
ing  to  get  its  big  toe  into  its  mouth ;  the  mystic 
symbol  of  the  serpent ;  the  planet  wheeling  round 
the  sun  ;  the  fiery  beauty  of  the  zodiac. 

I  think,  what  with  planning  and  sleepiness,  I 
was  a  little  feverish  and  confused  perhaps ;  all 
these  things  ran  through  my  head  in  such  curious 
associations. 

My  little  bit  was  only  this,  —  our  side  of  the 
way  and  over  across ;  I  and  my  bank-book  here ; 


94  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

the  Shreves  and  the  Nobles,  and  their  worries  and 
puzzles  there.  How  should  I  get  the  two  to 
gether  ? 

I  felt  myself  dreadfully  outside,  all  at  once,  with 
my  three  thousand  dollars.  How  should  I  get  in, 
—  I  who  thought  at  first  I  had  got  tickets  for 
everywhere  ? 

Finally,  and  in  the  first  place,  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  I  must  learn  German.  Rose  Noble 
knew  it,  and  I  did  n't. 

Out  under  the  beeches  in  the  old  garden,  while 
the  summer  weather  lasted ;  while  Rose's  school 
had  long  vacation,  and  she  was  busy  making  pretty 
nightgowns  and  under-robings.  I  could  help  her 
whip  and  hem,  while  I  grated  consonants  between 
my  tonsils,  and  learned  long  sentences  in  which  the 
nouns  were  centipedes  and  the  verbs  were  nobody 
knows  where.  And  over  the  German  and  our 
needlework,  we  should  grow  intimate,  —  more  in 
timate  than  ever ;  and  I  should  find  some  crafty 
and  blessed  way  of  "  putting  it,"  the  rest  of  it,  the 
little  things  and  the  big  things,  bit  by  bit,  —  that 
even  pride  could  not  resist ;  that,  in  truth,  it  could 
have  nothing  whatever,  by  any  pretense,  to  do 
with.  It  would  be  like  a  game  of  "  solitaire,"  — 
"  patience,"  as  they  call  it  in  the  English  novels ; 


INTO  THE  MIDDLES.  95 

laying  this  card  carefully  on  that,  looking  through 
and  through  the  position,  catching  my  chances  and 
my  sequences,  and  making  it  all  out  gloriously  at 
last,  with  my  king  and  queen  at  top. 

"  I  feel  as  if  it  was  my  story,"  I  said  to  mother, 
who  came  into  my  room  "  visiting." 

I  wonder  if  anybody  else  has  that  way  of 
mother's  of  talking  about  "visiting"  ? 

She  comes  in  between  her  busy  times,  —  while 
the  cake  is  baking,  perhaps,  or  Emery  Ann  is 
sweeping  her  room,  or  in  the  odd  minutes  before 
dinner,  or  the  twilight  after  tea,  —  and  she  sits 
down  and  says  she  has  come  to  "  visit  a  little " 
with  me. 

They  had  that  way  at  Dearwood,  —  the  sisters 
in  the  old  house ;  Aunt  Hetty  Maria  has  it  too ; 
but  it  doesn't  sound  so  sweet  from  anybody  as 
from  mother.  She  comes  so  close  and  so  kindly  ; 
her  visiting  is  right  into  your  thoughts  and  your 
heart.  It  makes  me  think  of  the  "gentle  visit- 
ings  "  I  remember  in  some  old  hymn.  I  think 
that  if  she  were  gone  away  out  of  the  body,  she 
would  still  come  and  visit  me  so. 

"  Well,  it  is  your  story,"  she  said  to  me  in  reply. 
"  You  're  living  right  into  it.  You  're  putting 
yourself  into  the  middle  of  it.  That 's  all  that 


96  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

makes  anything  our  story.  The  same  story  would 
be  anybody's  else  if  they  could  stand  where  we  do 
to  look  at  it.  It  's  the  pleasantness  of  books, 
and"  — 

"  In  the  middle,  —  yes."  I  interrupted  mother. 
The  word  struck  me.  "God  is  in  the  middle. 
Everybody's  story  is  his." 

"  And  it 's  the  '  joy '  we  '  enter  into,'  "  said 
mother,  finishing  her  sentence,  and  weaving  in  her 
word  and  thought  with  mine.  "  Is  n't  it  ?  " 

"  Loving  the  neighbor  as  one's  self.  The  ful 
filling  of  the  whole  law ;  the  perfect  rounding  of 
the  circle.  Standing  in  the  middle,  beside  God. 
Self  is  only  the  centre-point.  We  can  put  it 
where  we  please.  There  was  '  an  angel  standing 
in  the  sun.' ' 

Mother  reached  over  and  took  up  the  Bible  that 
was  on  my  little  table. 

"  I  wanted  to  see,"  she  said  pleasantly,  after 
she  had  found  the  place.  "  Why,  it 's  a  kind  of 
a  wonder,  child !  It  comes  like  what  we  were  say 
ing."  And  then  she  read :  — 

" '  He  cried  out  with  a  loud  voice,  saying  to  all 
the  fowls  that  fly  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  Come  and 
gather  yourselves  together  unto  the  supper  of  the 
great  God.'  It  fits  right  in,  Patience." 


INTO  THE  MIDDLES.  97 

"  It  always  does  come  so,  mother.  One  part  is 
never  put  into  my  head,  that  the  other  does  n't  fit 
right  on,  and  tell  more.  It  fits  to  the  old  things 
too.  It  shows  the  pattern  they  were  all  cut  out  to. 
4  The  fowls  that  fly  in  the  midst  of  heaven.'  The 
living  knowledges  and  thoughts  that  go  and  come 
all  through  the  heavens  and  between  all  souls. 
The  bird-meaning.  You  remember,  mother  ?  " 

"  That  was  the  supper  they  could  n't  come  to 
who  were  taken  up  with  their  own  ;  their  little  bits 
of  land,  and  their  wives,  and  their  merchandise. 
But  out  of  the  highways  and  hedges  they  came. 
Those  who  had  nothing.  It 's  the  rich  that  can 
4  hardly  enter  in.'  " 

"  If  they  're  in  the  '  middle  '  of  nothing  but  their 
riches.  Or  their  plans,  or  their  pleasures,  or  their 
cleverness,  or  their  prettiness.  Yes,  it's  the 
middle  that  signifies.  If  you're  in  the  wrong 
middle,  move  right  out  of  it ;  find  a  new  one ; 
they  're  all  around ;  everything  is  a  middle." 

I  went  on,  thinking  it  out  so,  and  brushing  my 
hair.  Mother  had  come  visiting  while  I  was  get 
ting  ready  for  bed.  They  are  dear  little  visiting 
times  then  ;  then,  and  at  the  early  morning,  when 
we  are  beginning  new  together,  and  the  first 
thing  is  to  find  each  other  for  a  minute.  It  has 


98  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

been  so  ever  since  I  was  a  little  child.  I  believe  it 
will  be  so  when  we  begin  new  together  by  and  by. 
The  first  thing  will  be  to  find  each  other,  —  to  look 
in  each  other's  morning  faces.  Everything  is  a 
sign,  and  God  will  make  it  all  come  true. 


CHAPTER  X. 

INTO  THE  SUNSHINE. 

IT  was  so  lovely  this  morning  that  we  could  not 
be  content  even  under  the  old  beeches.  It  was  a 
sort  of  a  truant  day.  Everything  seemed  to  say, 
"  Out !  further !  "  One  could  rest  in  nothing,  there 
was  so  much  all  about  and  beyond.  The  beauty 
was  like  a  field  of  pasture  fruit ;  it  was  impossible 
to  stop  to  pick,  it  spread  so  wide  to  lure  you  on. 
The  whole  world  was  greedy  with  gladness.  It  was 
like  the  poorhouse  boy,  —  only  from  very  fullness, 
not  denial,  —  sighing  to  itself  and  forth  into  the 
broad  air  that  held  it  warm :  "  More !  more ! " 

The  little  grasses  and  late  clovers;  the  leaves, 
crisp  and  clean  with  dews  and  searching  chemistries 
of  light,  and  all  alert  with  the  spring  that  is  in 
living  things;  the  tall,  lithe  stems  of  the  young 
trees,  and  the  trunks  of  old  ones  mighty  with  their 
longer  glad  aspiring  that  was  turned  to  solid 
strength ;  the  glistening,  restless  clouds,  the  little 
winds  of  heaven  like  happy  breaths,  —  everything 


100  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

panted  and  stirred  and  uplifted  itself  with  an 
ecstasy  that  was  at  once  replete  and  insatiate.  The 
globe  itself  seemed  to  revel  in  blue  space.  It  must 
needs  roll  on.  One  could  almost  feel  how  it  would 
be  impossible  to  lie  so  at  a  still  point  of  bliss.  The 
glad,  golden  orbit  was  accounted  for. 

Down  the  lane,  the  wild  grape-vines  had  heaped 
up  banks  of  living  green  over  the  low,  old  wall ; 
the  creepers  tossed  their  grace  and  glory  from  tree 
to  tree ;  the  clematis  was  cloudy-white  with  blos 
som  ;  the  ferns  were  plumy  and  fragrant  in  every 
little  angle ;  and  the  dear  little  life-everlasting, 
with  its  delicate,  mystical  odor,  was  plenty  under 
foot.  The  blackberries  were  full  and  sweet  with 
their  dark  wine,  and  the  scent  of  the  pines  and  the 
cedars  came  up  to  meet  you  from  the  wood. 

"  We  must  go  down  there,"  said  Rose. 

"  Shall  we  stop  anywhere  f  "  said  I.  "  It 's  a  day 
to  go  and  seek  a  summer-fortune." 

So  I  picked  up  "Ahn"  and  the  "Lesebuch," 
and  we  went  down.  Down  into  the  cool  and  damp 
by  the  brown  brook ;  over  and  up,  into  the  spicy 
stillness  of  the  evergreen  pasture ;  close  in,  among 
the  cedars,  against  the  "  shadow  of  the  great  rock." 

The  path  brought  up  here ;  or  we  might  have 
walked  on  until,  —  well,  at  least  until  some  dusty 

CALIFORNIA  WESTERN  UNIVERSITY 
RYAN  LIBRARY 


IZVTO  THE  SUNSHINE.  101 

turnpike  stopped  us.  The  rock  was  better.  It  was 
the  best  thing  about  this  lane  and  wood-path  that 
it  had  a  natural  pause  and  end.  I  like  an  upshot. 
Else  you  keep  on,  —  with  many  other  things  as 
well  as  green  lanes,  —  till  the  turnpike  runs  across, 
and  the  green  wood  shows  its  limits,  and  the  beauty 
is  all  over. 

I  said  a  bit  by  heart,  out  of  the  "Lesebuch." 
"Abraham  baute  einen  Altar."  And  I  declined 
the  dreadful  little  German  article  that  stickles  so 
for  all  its  cases  like  any  grown-up,  significant  word. 
And  then  Rose  told  me  a  little  about  substantive 
declensions. 

I  began  to  see  the  fog.  I  knew  I  had  not  got 
into  it,  so  I  held  my  peace.  But  I  saw  it  was  com 
ing.  That  is  the  reason  it  is  so  much  harder  for 
grown  people  to  learn  a  language,  or  any  new 
thing.  A  child  just  takes  the  one  step  set  for  him, 
never  counting  on,  or  thinking,  how  many  more 
there  may  be,  or  what  they  have  to  do  with  each 
other.  We  grown-up  simpletons  anticipate,  ana 
lyze,  and  try  to  get  hold  of  the  theory,  and  muddle 
our  brains.  Therefore,  also,  we  must  become  "  as 
little  children,"  to  learn  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

"  I  'm  not  discouraged  yet,  Rose ;  but  I  wish  to 
tell  you  that  I  know  it 's  there." 


102  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

"  What,  —  discouragement  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  the  climax  of  it ;  there 's  always  a  climax 
of  discouragement  in  everything.  When  you  get 
into  the  thick  of  it,  and  can't  see  how,  or  if  ever, 
you  're  coming  out.  It 's  in  a  poem,  or  a  story,  or 
a  sermon,  or  a  painting,  or  a  piece  of  music,  or  a 
dress-fitting,  or  a  house-cleaning,  or  a  living.  It 's 
always  there;  and  you've  got  to  run  against  it, 
and  have  your  tussle  with  it.  Then,  all  at  once,  if 
you  're  blessed,  you  come  out  of  it,  into  the  clear 
daylight,  and  wonder  where  the  dark  was.  It's 
the  miracle  worked  in  everything.  It 's  the  open 
ing  to  the  knocking.  It's  the  'horning,'  as  the 
little  child  said." 

"  That 's  a  very  true  thing,  Patience.  I  'm  glad 
you  've  said  it.  Only  —  I  can't  help  wondering, 
once  in  a  while,  if  some  people  don't  have  to  live 
all  their  lives  in  a  climax." 

"  I  never  heard  of  but  one  person  who  did,"  said 
I,  "and  that  was  Mr.  Micawber.  And  you 
know  how  it  was  disposed  of,  simply  enough,  for 
him.  '  If  he  is  going  to  be  continually  arrested, 
his  friends  have  just  got  to  be  continually  bailing 
him  out,'  says  Aunt  Betsy.  Dickens  put  it  in 
extreme,  as  his  way  is,  but  he  puts  the  very  doc 
trine  of  heaven  into  it,  —  which  is  also  his  way." 


I1VTO  THE  SUNSHINE.  103 

"  Rose,"  I  began  again,  after  a  minute  or  two, 
"  I  wish  you  and  I  had  been  children  together ;  or 
else  that  you  were  child  enough  now  to  believe  in  a 
fairy  story." 

"Why?"  asked  Rose. 

"  Because  then  we  should  have  got  used  to 
spending  our  coppers  together,  and  dividing  our 
nuts  and  candies,  and  shouldn't  think  anything 
of  it ;  and~because  I  've  got  a  kind  of  a  fairy  story 
to  tell.  Somebody  gave  me  a  nut,  and  I  've 
cracked  it ;  and  it 's  a  good  deal  too  much  for  one. 
And  fairy  gifts  don't  keep,  you  know.  Rose, 
when  you  are  married,  I  don't  mean  to  give  you 
a  silver  flat-iron  or  watering-pot,  or  — a  parlor 
pitchfork  and  spoolrake  "  — 

"  What  are  you  talking  about?" 

"  Pitchforks  ?  Spoolrakes  ?  Why,  the  newest 
presents  for  brides,  to  be  sure.  Silver  things  to 
keep  hung  up  by  your  work-table,  and  round 
everywhere,  to  reach  after  whatever  tumbles  down 
and  rolls  away  just  when  you  want  it,  and  where 
you  can't  get  it ;  or  for  what  is  out  of  arm's-length 
when  you  've  got  your  lap  full.  If  they  have  n't 
got  'em  yet,  they  will  by  that  time.  They  Ve  in 
vented  everything  else.  I  'm  not  going  to  give 
you  any  of  these  things ;  and  you  've  got  your 


104  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

grandmother's  spoons.  So  I  want,  —  instead,  — 
it 's  a  fairy  story,  you  see,  —  to  go  a  day's  shop 
ping  with  you,  dear.  Just  one  day.  I  want  a  real 
good  outing,  you  see ;  and  besides  that,  my  pocket 's 
burnt  all  through  and  through." 

Where  had  all  my  beautiful  craft  gone  to,  and 
my  game  of  patience  ? 

I  could  n't  help  it ;  it  was  just  like  me ;  my 
heart  and  my  pocket  were  burning ;  how  could  I 
wait  till  I  could  say  it  in  German,  and  Rose  in  a 
climax  all  the  while  ? 

And  besides  that,  I  said  before,  it  was  a  morning 
of  outings.  The  whole  world  was  reaching,  and 
giving,  and  asking,  and  brimful,  and  running  over. 

But  the  open-hearted  day  was  on  all  sides.  She 
was  touched  and  tuned  with  it  as  well  as  I.  She 
was  n't  "  Rose  Noble,"  either,  for  nothing. 

Her  face  was  sweet,  and  bright,  and  surprised, 
with  a  thankful  pleasure,  as  if  some  little  sun- 
shower  had  fallen  ;  and  there  was  a  high,  generous 
understanding  in  her  eyes. 

And  she  said  simply  :  — 

"I  can't  refuse  you  the  'more  blessed '-ness, 
Pashie,  can  I  ?  " 

It  was  all  right  and  very  well ;  and  the  glad  out 
going  day  had  made  me  do  it,  and  fixed  it  all,  a 


INTO  THE  SUNSHINE.  105 

great  deal  better  than  I  could  have  planned.  For 
there  was  plenty  to  do,  somehow,  by  and  by. 

When  we  came  home  we  found  Mrs.  Shreve  sit 
ting  with  mother.  They  had  been  laughing  till 
there  they  both  sat,  wiping  their  spectacles.  Mrs. 
Shreve  was  quivering  yet. 

"  Why,  what  is  it,  little  mother  ?  " 

And  so  they  told  it  over  again.  How  Mrs. 
Shreve's  new,  green  Irish  girl  —  "I  shall  always 
have  a  new  girl  and  a  raw  one,  as  long  as  I  have 
my  old  stove,"  she  said,  as  chipper  as  ever  for  all 
that  —  had  been  found  crying  at  the  stairs.  She 
did  n't  know  how  to  go  up  and  down.  She  'd 
never  learned  on  anything  but  a  ladder,  at  home, 
and  had  come  straight  from  shipboard. 

"  It  only  shows,"  said  mother,  when  we  had  got 
a  little  over  it  again,  "  the  things  we  do  learn,  with 
out  realizing.  We  have  to  begin  when  we  're 
babies,  that 's  certain." 

"  And  we  never  know  what  we  're  laying  up 
for,"  said  Mrs.  Shreve.  "  I  suppose  it  '11  be  so 
between  this  world  and  the  next,  in  things  we 
never  think  of." 

"  In  just  this  very  thing,"  said  I,  seized  sud 
denly  with  the  meaning.  "  There  are  stairs  be 
tween  the  stories,  —  if  we  knew  how  to  use  them." 


106  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

"  Spirits  crying  at  the  bottom,  —  and  spirits  cry 
ing  at  the  top,  perhaps,  and  only  the  angels 
knowing  how  to  go  up  and  down,"  said  mother 
gently. 

"  I  think,"  said  Rose,  "  the  stairs  we  learn  on 
are  the  stairs  between  the  stories  here,  —  between 
the  different  human  lives." 

"  I  knew  I  should  get  it  out  of  you,"  said  Mrs. 
Shreve.  "  That 's  what  I  came  and  told  the  story 
for.  I  did  n't  know  what  it  was,  but  I  had  a  feel 
ing  of  something  in  it,  besides  the  fun.  And  you 
always  have  the  thing  that 's  wanted,  —  cut  and 
dried,  and  bottled  and  labeled.  There's  always 
herbs  and  cordial  in  this  house,  if  everybody  else  is 
out." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

INTO   THE   SHOPS. 

NOBODY  would  believe  what  an  excitement  it 
was  to  me,  that  day's  going  to  Boston. 

In  the  first  place,  I  had  not  been  away  from 
home  before,  except  to  go  to  church,  since  I  broke 
my  leg.  And  then,  almost  anything,  if  you  don't 
do  it  very  often,  and  if  most  times  your  days  are 
taken  up  with  little  busy,  dutiful  doings,  makes  a 
holiday,  especially  if  you  are  hearty  and  thorough 
about  it. 

People  who  live  ten  miles  or  so  from  the  city, 
and  three  quarters  of  a  mile  out  of  the  railway  vil 
lage,  —  who  don't  keep  any  horses  and  carriages, 
and  don't  spend  money,  usually,  till  they  have 
thought  at  least  twice  about  it,  —  get  the  full  good 
of  going  to  Boston.  They  begin  over  night.  They 
make  their  memorandum,  and  their  calculations ; 
these  last  to  be  upset  and  twisted  and  reversed 
next  day  by  shop  experience  and  all  the  four  parts 
of  arithmetic,  until,  if  it  don't  end  in  wholly  losing 


108  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

their  heads,  and  getting  a  general  wild,  reckless 
impression  that  nothing  matters  in  particular,  but 
that  they,  and  their  plans,  and  their  pockets,  are 
but  simply  absorbed  into  the  business  rush  and 
whirl  of  that  day's  Washington  Street,  without  any 
reference  to  personal  results,  —  they  may  congratu 
late  themselves  on  rare  presence  of  mind  and  tena 
cious  individuality. 

There  are  the  styles,  and  the  materials,  —  the  im 
portations  of  the  season  and  no  other ;  so  many 
patterns  in  a  piece,  or  a  losing  remnant ;  one 
price  at  all  the  stores ;  no  way  of  substituting  or 
saving.  What  is  to  be  done  ?  All  political  economy 
and  commercial  combination  are  against  the  simple- 
minded,  little  back-parlor  plans  and  reckonings  of 
last  night. 

But  I  was  beginning  with  the  pleasantness ;  I 
did  n't  mean  to  get  into  the  craze.  Sometimes  you 
don't ;  sometimes  everything  falls  right  in.  It  is 
all  match-grooved ;  you  make  all  your  connections ; 
another  time  everything  is  unhitched. 

We  had  a  smooth  day,  —  Rose  and  I ;  from  the 
ride  down  the  shady  Old  Road,  in  Farmer  Graitt's 
covered  wagon,  with  our  best  bonnets  on  (people 
who  go  every  day  or  two  keep  "  Boston  bonnets  " 
of  a  meaner  sort ;  but  if  we  did  n't  wear  our  best 


INTO  THE  SHOPS.  109 

to  Boston,  when  should  we  wear  them?),  to  the 
coming  out  at  night,  galvanized  up  to  the  arm-sizes 
with  every  little  nerve  and  muscle  watchful  and 
conscious  of  paper  parcels  various  in  shape  and 
bulk,  never  to  be  lost  feeling  of  till  they  were  got 
safely  home,  and  with  only  our  elbows  left  to  hold 
against  our  pocket-plackets  for  fear  of  the  picks. 

The  waysides  were  blue  with  the  midsummer 
flowers  of  the  wild  succory.  The  tansy  was  getting 
golden  tops.  There  was  a  little  savor  of  sea-salt- 
ness  in  the  air,  that  just  tingled  the  nostrils  deli 
cately,  and  made  a  cordial  of  the  light  August 
wind.  We  met  little  boys  with  bare  feet  and  big 
baskets,  going  up  to  the  pastures,  berrying.  Round 
the  railroad  station  were  gentlemen  in  summer 
trousers  and  waistcoats  and  straw  hats,  unfolding 
their  morning  papers ;  and  ladies  alighting  from 
carriages,  giving  each  other  fresh  morning  greeting 
with  fresh,  bright  faces. 

What  a  pretty  world  it  was,  —  this  side  of  it ! 
How  easily  the  day  began,  and  might  run  on,  and 
other  days  come  after,  just  like  this  ! 

It  was  queer,  though,  to  think  of  dear,  good  Mrs. 
Shreve,  at  home  with  her  raw  girl,  and  her  pester 
ing  stove,  and  her  ironing,  on  this  gay,  free  day. 
And  of  people  sick  on  beds,  and  people  tired  with 


110  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

night-watching,  and  people  hard  at  work  in  dusty 
little  shops,  and  mothers  with  arms  full  and  houses 
waiting  to  be  put  to  morning  rights,  and  all  the 
worry  and  ache  and  weariness  that  were  surely 
about,  somewhere.  Only,  people  are  so  quiet  about 
it !  The  world  has  learned  to  put  up  with  so 
much !  There  are  the  houses,  in  which  such  mani 
fold  cares  of  life  are  going  on,  hushed,  hanging  no 
flag  out,  making  no  sign ;  nobody  rushing  out  at 
the  doors  to  proclaim  a  grievance,  or  protest 
against  the  careless  comfort  riding  by. 

Yet  the  whole  world  lies  open,  skyward ;  and  no 
walls  shut  out  the  heavenly  sight  and  ministering. 
No  place,  even,  is  mean  to  the  angels ;  they  come 
and  bring  their  own  glory  with  them. 

This  went  through  my  mind,  standing  in  the  vil 
lage  waiting  for  the  cars.  There  was  little  stir 
except  what  car-time  made  ;  and  presently  there 
would  be  a  rush  and  a  shriek  and  a  bustle,  and 
then  in  a  minute,  the  still  little  place  would  be  left 
to  its  own  stillness  as  if  it  had  just  died.  And  it 
gives  up  the  ghost  so,  every  day. 

It  was  something  to  be  part  of  the  ghost  to-day. 
To  be  one  of  these  for  whom  the  fuss  was  made, 
and  whom  the  little  boys  looked  after,  leaning  over 
the  bridge-rail;  little  boys,  some  of  them,  who 


INTO  THE  SHOPS. 


Ill 


never  went  to  Boston  in  their  lives  ;  who  stood  at 
this  end  always,  seeing  the  people  go  and  return, 
and  knowing  that  the  great  city  lay  at  the  further 
end  of  those  two  iron  lines  that  curved  off  into  the 
little  wood  beside  the  river. 

Why,  you  can't  move  but  you  get  so  much  to 
think  of.  You  are  in  a  middle  continually,  whether 
you  will  or  no.  It  is  spiritually  and  geometrically 
true. 

The  little  birds  sat  on  the  telegraph  wires.  I 
wonder  if  they  feel  the  thrill  of  the  great  words 
that  run  under  them  along  their  perch ;  and  if 
they  fly  off  suddenly  to  the  woods  to  tell  there  what 
wonderful  things  are  outside  ;  or  if  they  think  the 
iron  strings  are  spun  through  the  air  on  purpose 
for  them  to  roost  on  ;  and  if  so,  what  their  great- 
great-grandmothers  did  without  them  ? 

Perhaps  we  rest  on  spiritual  lines  as  wonderful ; 
how  do  we  know  what  quivers  back  and  forth  close 
by  us,  —  what  unseen  force  is  in  each  thread  we 
cling  to  ? 

There  is  a  good  deal  in  the  spirit  of  things.  It 
was  so  in  the  beautiful  outdoors,  the  other  day, 
when  all  things  were  giving  and  taking  ;  it  was  so 
in  the  shops  this  morning,  when  everybody  was 
having  and  spending.  It  did  n't  seem  so  much  for 


112          PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

me  to  have  the  silk  measured  off  for  Rose  —  that 
we  both  decided  would  be  so  especially  pretty  for 
her  —  as  it  would  have  done  if  I  had  gone  alone 
and  bought  it,  and  brought  it  home  with  the  formal 
parade  of  a  present. 

I  let  her  pay  in  the  street  cars  for  both,  with  her 
ready  small  change ;  and  it  was  several  times,  for 
I  could  not  tax  my  weaker  limb  with  too  much 
walking  about.  And  I  let  her  settle  for  the  dinner 
checks  at  Vinton's,  while  I  finished  my  ice-cream. 
I  never  thanked  her,  or  took  any  notice  ;  it  was 
all  for  granted  that  we  were  out  on  a  holiday  to 
gether,  spending  our  coppers. 

So  she  did  n't  mind  —  so  much,  I  mean  —  when 
I  paid  at  Hovey's.  And  then  I  did  n't  give  her 
time  to  think  of  anything,  except  whether  I  was 
going  to  break  my  neck,  or  at  least  my  leg  again, 
as  I  plunged  across  Summer  Street  amongst  the 
teams  and  carriages,  threading  myself  in  and  out 
against  the  back  wheels,  and  ran  up  into  the  carpet 
store. 

"  You  see  it 's  your  mother's  turn  now,  Rose ;  so 
hush  up.  I  think,  myself,  it 's  the  mothers  that 
ought  to  have  the  wedding  presents." 

That  was  an  inspiration.  Rose  could  n't  refuse 
for  her  mother,  and  her  mother  couldn't  refuse 


INTO  THE  SHOPS.  113 

after  Rose  had  accepted.  I  never  thought  of  it  till 
that  minute,  but  it  was  one  of  the  things  that  fayed 
right  in,  that  blessed  day. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Rose,  with  a  kind  of  a 
gasp  in  her  breath  as  she  whispered,  —  for  the  car 
pet  gentleman  had  met  us  now,  at  the  head  of  the 
stairs,  —  "  but  I  feel  as  if  I  was  going  over  Niagara 
Falls." 

"  Precisely ;  so  what  have  you  to  do  with  it  ? 
It 's  the  river's  lookout.  Can  you  show  us  some 
small-figured,  ingrain  carpets,  —  bright  colors,  — 
brown,  with  a  little  crimson,  sir  ?  " 

I  said  it  very  glib,  understanding  myself  per 
fectly,  which  I  don't  always  do  —  at  the  right  min 
ute  —  when  I  go  shopping.  That 's  another  dif 
ference  in  the  days,  and  the  state  of  brain ;  the 
memorandums  may  be  all  the  same.  I  established 
the  rapport  directly,  —  between  me  and  the  sales 
man  and  the  particular  roll  of  carpet  that  was 
there,  among  those  walls  of  rolls,  like  the  statue  in 
the  marble.  It  is  dreadful  when  a  sort  of  fog 
comes  over  you  just  when  you  mean  to  make  your 
wishes  plain,  —  a  distrust  of  the  instant  appreci 
ation  of  your  attendant,  who,  of  course,  in  that 
case,  instantly  does  not  appreciate.  It  is  your 
faith  that  fails  ;  and  so  you  stand  before  the  moun- 


114  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

tain,  —  the  whole  enormous  stock  in  trade,  —  and 
nothing  moves ;  except,  indeed,  exactly  the  wrong 
things,  which,  if  he 's  very  obliging,  he  goes  on  with 
till  you  are  ready  to  cry  because  you  can't  possibly 
stop  him. 

Now,  it  was  rolled  right  down,  —  the  very  thing 
we  had  thought  of  and  talked  about ;  little  bright, 
brown  leaves,  and  red  berries,  twisted  together 
over  a  mottled  ground  of  quieter  shades;  well 
covered  in  the  pattern,  and  well  knit  in  the  weav 
ing  ;  good  to  sweep  and  to  wear,  and  lovely  to 
look  at. 

"  We  '11  send  the  express  for  it  to-morrow  morn 
ing,"  said  I ;  and  I  left  Rose  sitting  on  a  carpet- 
roll  while  I  got  away  to  the  desk,  to  give  the  ad 
dress  and  pay  the  bill. 

That  had  n't  seemed  much  either;  we  were 
suited  so  quick,  and  there  was  so  little  chance  for 
comparing  and  counting  up. 

Afterward,  we  were  in  and  out  at  Mudge's,  and 
Churchill  &  Watson's,  and  Holbrook's,  —  jolly 
and  reckless  as  two  little  drops  in  the  rapids,  that 
had  just  as  lief  go  anywhere  now,  among  the  rest, 
as  how  could  we  help  it  once  we  had  got  in  ?  And 
we  made  up  indiscriminate  bundles  together,  she 
choosing,  and  I  choosing,  and  both  paying,  till  I 


INTO  THE  SHOPS.  115 

knew  she  would  never  unravel  the  account  of  it,  or 
know  exactly  how  she  happened  to  get  half  of 
them,  —  the  big  things  and  little.  I  did  n't  say 
anything  about  the  two  lace  collars,  or  the  half- 
dozen  little  vine-embroidered  handkerchiefs,  or  the 
Balbriggan  stockings,  which  she  did  n't  know  were 
eighteen  dollars  the  dozen,  but  which  I  knew  would 
be  worth  the  money,  and  outlast  all  the  rest  she 
was  buying.  What  business  had  she  to  interfere 
with  my  part  of  the  parcels  ? 

I  never  felt  so  bright,  and  so  wicked,  and  so 
wise  and  heart-happy,  in  all  my  life. 

I  could  n't  smuggle  in  the  "  back  hair  "  among 
the  dry  goods,  so  I  took  her  deliberately  away  to 
West  Street,  among  the  waterfalls,  and  —  I  can't 
think  of  any  other  word,  —  I  "  boosted "  up  her 
conscience  to  buy. 

"If  it  was  n't  more  than  six  dollars,  —  just  a 
little  one,  — perhaps  she  would." 

And  so  we  went  in. 

I  had  been  there  last  winter  with  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria,  to  get  a  frizette,  so  I  felt  as  if  I  knew  the 
man.  When  you  don't  buy  a  thing  more  than 
once  in  a  dozen  years,  it  seems  as  if  it  stood  out 
among  the  seller's  transactions  as  it  does  among 
your  own.  At  any  rate,  I  knew  them  all  well 


116  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

enough  to-day.  I  felt  intimate  and  privileged 
everywhere ;  for  I  had  —  or  had  had  —  a  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  in  my  pocket,  and  twenty-eight 
hundred  and  fifty  more  at  home,  in  the  blue  book. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

INTO   THE  YEARS. 

ROSE  was  as  shamefaced  over  the  box  of  bands 
as  if  the  man  were  used  to  blushes. 

Of  course  there  was  nothing  for  six  dollars,  — 
scarcely  for  ten  or  twelve  ;  though  at  last,  finding 
that  the  law  of  increase  in  price  was  more  accord 
ing  to  the  inch  or  two  difference  in  lengths  than 
to  the  thickness,  I  matched  the  bright  chestnut  tint 
of  the  head  that  bent  itself  so  mutely  above  the 
counter  of  falsities,  with  a  soft,  full  fall  of  hair, 
not  quite  so  fine  or  quite  so  long  as  those  we  had 
been  looking  at,  but  bright  as  Rose's  own,  and 
which  the  dealer  said  he  would  let  us  have  for 
eleven  dollars.  "And  cheap,  too,  for  the  shade 
everybody 's  wearing." 

Rose  lifted  her  head,  and  moved  the  box  slightly 
from  her.  "  You  see  it  is  no  use,"  she  said,  "  and 
perhaps  it  is  just  as  well." 

But  I  was  so  determined  that  day  upon  my 
wickedness. 


118  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

I  put  the  hair  into  her  hand. 

"  See,"  said  I,  "  the  color  is  perfect,  —  better 
than  those  long  ones.  And  I  think  we  can  come 
to  some  agreement.  We  are  country  ladies,"  I 
observed  persuasively  and  confidentially  to  the 
hair-merchant,  "  and  expect  to  make  bargains,  you 
know." 

Meanwhile  I  had  got  out  a  five-dollar  bill.  I 
could  have  picked  Rose's  pocket,  let  alone  my  own, 
for  all  she  would  have  noticed  about  it.  Her  head 
was  down  again.  She  did  n't  know  what  to  do 
with  the  band  of  hair,  or  how  to  get  rid  of  it.  I 
believe  she  was  getting  vexed  with  me. 

I  held  up  the  five-dollar  note  over  her  shoulder, 
between  my  thumbs  and  fingers.  I  nodded  to  the 
man.  "  Call  it  six  dollars,"  said  I,  as  bold  as  Jack 
the  Giant-Killer.  "That  was  the  price  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  to." 

The  man's  eyes  looked  funny  for  a  minute,  be 
tween  growing  big  suddenly  and  then  twinkling. 
I  don't  think  he  ever  had  such  extraordinary  cus 
tomers  before. 

"  Well,  —  it  is  an  odd  length,  —  and  wove  in 
the  old  style,  flat,  —  if  it  suits  you,  I  '11  call  it  six  ; 
though  it 's  low,  very  low ;  and  I  should  n't  like 
the  price  to  be  told  of." 


INTO  THE  YEARS.  119 

No  danger  of  Rose  displaying  her  bargain,  which 
she  was  so  ashamed  to  make. 

I  took  the  thing  from  her,  and  gave  it  to  the 
shop-man  to  be  put  up ;  and  with  it,  I  tucked  the 
five  dollars  into  his  hand. 

She  got  out  her  little  porte-monnaie,  and  paid 
the  six ;  and  that 's  all  she  knows  about  it  to  this 
day. 

I  have  about  come  to  the  conclusion  that  —  once 
in  a  great  while  —  even  a  good,  well-meaning  action 
is  all  the  more  enjoyable  if  you  have  to  put  a  little 
spice  of  iniquity  into  it. 

Rose  was  very  still,  riding  up  that  evening,  in 
Farmer  Graitt's  wagon.  Things  seemed  to  be 
coming  over  her  all  at  once  with  a  sort  of  realizing 
sense.  We  had  got  out  of  the  city  whirl  into  the 
calm  country  again. 

When  she  got  down  at  her  own  gate  and  bade 
me  good-night  she  said :  — 

"  I  don't  half  know  what  has  possessed  me 
to-day,  Patience.  What  will  mother  say  to  it 
all?" 

It  was  the  naughty  child  coming  home  after  the 
fun  was  over. 

"  Never  you  mind,  Rosy,"  said  I,  as  hardened  as 
ever.  "  Don't  tell  her  everything  all  at  once.  I  '11 


120  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

come  across  to-morrow  morning,  and  bear  all  the 
blame.     And  help  make  the  carpet." 

The  next  day  was  my  birthday.  I  have  got  into 
a  way  of  having  birthdays  lately.  They  always 
used  to  come,  once  in  a  while,  but  nowadays  the 
whiles  are  shorter. 

There  was  more  than  a  plenty  of  time  between 
them  once ;  I  got  quite  tired  of  being  eight  years 
old,  I  remember,  before  the  day  came  when  I  could 
say  I  was  nine ;  and  I  was  thoroughly  used  to  call 
ing  myself  fifteen  before  the  dignity  of  sixteen  was 
laid  upon  me. 

I  was  in  no  danger,  then,  of  forgetting  my  age. 
There  was  a  real  mile  between  each  two  milestones. 

I  traveled  in  a  coach  and  four  in  those  days ;  I 
could  see  the  wheels  go  round,  and  count  the  little 
flowers  by  the  wayside.  At  some  point  or  other, 
unperceived  of  me,  they  took  off  the  horses,  and 
put  on  steam ;  and  now,  whiz !  the  milestones  flash 
by  me,  till  life  seems  sometimes  nothing  but  a  post 
and  rail  fence. 

There  is,  really,  such  a  thing  as  an  "  uncertain  " 
age.  It_j?_  a  solemn  fact  that  the  time  comes  when 
you  have  to  stop  and  calculate  before  you  can  tell 
the  truth.  Why,  it  is  quite  hard  enough  to  re- 


IZVTO  THE  YEARS.  121 

member  the  year  of  our  Lord,  —  at  least  between 
January  and  July.  No  wonder  they  make  a  fes 
tival  of  the  world's  birthday.  They  have  to. 
It  is  a  mere  practical  necessity.  Without  it,  the 
very  planet  would  lose  count  and  go  adrift,  like 
any  other  spinster.  I  hardly  got  used  to  1867  be 
fore  1868  came ;  indeed,  it  seems  queer  still  that 
we  are  in  the  sixties  at  all.  I  realize  nothing  far 
ther  down  than  the  forties.  The  rest  seems  tacked 
on  in  a  hurry.  The  years  are  as  if  they  had  been 
gathered  before  they  were  ripe ;  or  like  what  I 
was  talking  about  the  other  day,  —  the  machine 
stitches  that  you  don't  have  the  comfort  of  as 
stitches  ;  the  first  thing  you  know,  you  've  got  a 
seam. 

That  brings  me  back  to  this  very  blessed  birth 
day  of  mine,  —  my  thirty-ninth.  There  was  an 
other  seam  done,  —  I  had  only  got  to  join  off,  — 
and  I  meant  to  have  a  holiday.  I  gave  myself  my 
own  treat.  I  tyrannized  over  my  little  mother, 
and  made  her  give  up  everything  she  had  thought 
of,  —  the  special  raspberry-roll  for  dinner  and  the 
iced-cake  for  tea,  —  the  making  of  them  at  least, 
that  she  was  going  to  help  Emery  Ann  with,  — 
and  come  over  with  me,  picnicking  and  carpet-sew 
ing  at  the  Nobles'.  Emery  Ann  could  make  the 


122  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

raspberry-roll  alone,  and  bring  it  after  us  at  twelve 
o'clock. 

We  have  a  fashion  round  in  our  little  neighbor 
hood,  —  the  Shreves,  and  the  Nobles,  and  we,  —  of 
picnic  visits.  We  did  it  before  great  surprise  par 
ties  were  invented.  We  would  take  our  pie  and  our 
knitting-work,  and  "  run  in."  It  is  a  nice  way. 
Especially  if  you  choose  a  day  when  you  know 
that  the  girl  is  gone,  or  any  little  domestic  enter 
prise  out  of  the  cooking  line,  and  adverse  to  it,  is 
afoot ;  your  knitting-work  is  nothing  to  lay  by, 
you  know ;  and  you  are  running  breadths,  or  setting 
up  china,  before  anybody  notices ;  and  the  pie  or 
the  roasted  ducks  come  in  so  "  pleasant  and  unex 
pected  "  at  the  end.  For  it  is  an  understood  point 
that  though  you  bring  a  basket  as  big  as  a  baby's 
wagon,  and  only  produce  four  needles  and  a  ball  of 
yarn  to  account  for  it,  and  though  everybody  has 
to  walk  round  it  and  over  it  twenty  times,  it  shall 
be  an  utterly  invisible  and  spiritual  presence  till 
the  surprise  comes  out  of  it. 

I  killed  two  birds  to-day ;  or  I  made  two  knots 
in  the  end  of  my  seam. 

I  had  something  all  ready  in  my  pocket  for 
Dickie  Shreve;  that  is,  for  his  mother,  only  she 
would  n't  know  it.  It  was  really  a  cooking-stove  ; 


INTO  THE  YEARS.  123 

but  in  fairy  dealings,  —  which  are  all  that  can 
come  of  a  fairy  gift,  —  you  never  know  exactly 
what  you  have  or  handle. 

What  I  appeared,  to  take  out  of  my  pocket  and 
give  to  Dickie  Shreve  that  morning — it  happened 
nicely  "  by  the  way  "  as  I  meant  it  should,  for  we 
met  him  as  we  went  across  —  was  a  year's  railway 
ticket. 

He  was  going  to  enter  the  School  of  Technology 
in  September ;  and  I  expected  to  make  a  little  ex 
pressman  of  him  in  his  trips  to  and  from  the  city. 
I  told  him  so ;  that  I  should  have  books  from  Lor- 
ing's,  and  things  from  dry-goods  stores,  and  Brig- 
ham's  rolls,  and  letters  to  post,  and  cheques  to 
cash,  and  bills  to  pay,  and  worsteds  to  match,  all 
winter  long  ;  so  he  need  n't  be  obliged  ;  he  did  n't 
know  yet  what  he  was  coming  to.  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  to  have  a  claim  upon  him,  and  he  would 
be  tired  enough  of  his  bargain  before  he  got 
through. 

Season  tickets  are  pretty  dear  on  our  branch, 
and  I  knew  it  would  make  the  difference  of  the 
cooking-stove,  and  more,  in  Mrs.  Shreve's  plans. 
I  saw  a  new  suit  of  clothes  in  the  perspective  of 
Dick's  eyes,  as  I  snubbed  him  up  in  his  thanks 
and  sent  him  off. 


124  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

The  carpet  arrived  at  Mrs.  Noble's  just  as  we 
did ;  and  she  did  n't  know  which  to  let  in  first. 
Gammel  was  in  a  hurry,  and  the  great  roll  was 
right  in  the  door-way  and  so  were  we.  There 
were  so  many  counter-excitements,  and  it  was  so 
exactly  as  bad  for  us  as  for  her,  blundering  right 
upon  this  particular  moment,  that  everything  was 
got  over  without  being  really  done  at  all ;  giving 
and  taking,  and  blaming  and  thanking,  and  walk 
ing  in  and  making  welcome.  Mrs.  Noble  never 
got  farther,  or  clearer,  than  :  — 

"  Well,  I  never  did !  Rose  said  —  but  I  could  n't 
have  believed  —  what  could  possess  you  ?  I  don't 
know  a  thing  to  say,  —  I  have  n't  got  a  single  word. 
Come  right  in,  and  lay  off  your  things.  I  'm  right 
down  glad  to  see  you,  at  any  rate." 

We  had  n't  anything  to  lay  off  but  parasols,  and 
then  we  all  fell  to  cutting  the  cords  and  pulling 
away  the  heavy  paper,  and  letting  out  the  bright 
lengths  over  the  floor. 

"  Well,  who  would  f  "  began  Mrs.  Noble  again. 
"  I  do  declare,  it 's  perfectly  elegant !  And  I  can't 
say  a  single  word ! "  She  was  as  sure  of  this 
as  any  speechmaker,  and  went  on  accordingly. 
"  Why,  you  could  most  pick  up  those  leaves,  espe 
cially  the  light-shaded  ones,  —  those  maple-yellows. 


INTO  THE  YEARS.  125 

They  look  so  raised.  And  it 's  such  a  good  mixed 
ground ;  and  the  pattern  all  wove  in  so  close  and 
firm.  Why,  there  won't  be  a  pocket  in  it  when  it 
wears ;  and  it  never  will  wear.  It  '11  turn  over, 
and  end  for  end,  and  anyway.  Well,  there,  —  I 
have  n't  got  a  word !  " 

Sure  enough,  now  she  had  n't.  She  had  said  it 
till  it  had  come  true. 

We  had  a  beautiful  time,  cutting,  and  matching, 
and  sewing ;  only  there  was  n't  half  enough  to  do. 
There  were  only  five  long  seams  for  four  of  us ; 
and  the  ends  to  catch-stitch  down,  and  the  short 
pieces  to  put  on  for  the  side  windows  by  the  chim 
ney.  By  the  time  Emery  Ann  and  the  raspberry- 
roll  came,  we  had  got  all  through,  and  had  spread 
it  out  and  were  walking  on  it. 

"  You  might  rake  'em  up,  all  into  one  corner, 
they  're  so  natural,"  Mrs.  Noble  began  over  again. 
"  I  should  n't  ever  have  lit  on  it.  They  'd  have 
sold  me  some  old  thing  in  squares,  or  eggs,  or  dia 
monds.  I  'm  so  old-fashioned  looking,  you  see ; 
they  keep  things  laid  by  for  old  women  and  out 
West.  And  you  can't  show  'em  half  you  know,  — 
that  is,  if  you  're  at  all  polite.  Paper  hangings  and 
carpets  are  the  biggest  trials  to  buy ;  I  'd  as  lief  be 
fed  with  a  spoon." 


126  PATIENCE  STRON&S  OUTINGS. 

It  was  such  a  real,  good  time.  It  was  one  of 
the  best  birthdays  I  had  almost  ever  had,  —  this 
last  of  the  thirties. 

It  was  one  of  the  life-outings;  one  that  might 
have  been  hard  and  regretful,  but  filled  brimful 
of  sunshiny  pleasantness  for  me  to  remember  it 
always  by. 

I  sha'n't  be  a  bit  afraid  to  go  clear  out  —  into 
forty. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
INTO   THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PART  OF  IT. 

MOTHER'S  birthday  is  just  a  fortnight  after 
mine.  For  a  little  while,  so,  I  feel  —  after  a  fash 
ion —  the  oldest.  At  any  rate,  I  am  always  her 
oldest  child,  and  she  is  my  youngest  mother ;  for 
the  mother  is  as  many  in  her  family  —  separately 
and  specially  to  each  —  as  God  is  in  his  world. 

We  are  both  in  one  month ;  the  beautiful  Sep 
tember.  My  day  is  the  very  first,  and  hers  is  the 
fifteenth.  I  have  the  earliest  touch  of  the  autumn 
time  upon  me,  and  she  is  in  the  middle  beauty. 

For  just  these  two  weeks,  we  can  pretend  to 
count  a  whole  year  less  of  difference. 

She  tells  me  of  those  happy  two  weeks,  of  which 
the  reminder  is  like  a  long  birthday  joy,  reaching 
from  mine  to  hers,  and  making  it  holy  and  beauti 
ful  all  between ;  when  she  was  not  quite  eighteen 
and  I  had  come  to  belong  to  all  the  rest  of  her  life, 
for  always  and  always.  I  enter  so  into  what  it 
must  have  been  for  her,  that  it  is  as  if  I,  too,  had 


128  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

known  motherhood.  All  mutual  relations  are  like 
reflected  rainbows.  The  first  is  straight  from  the 
sun ;  but  the  second  is  over  against  it  and  like  unto 
it ;  and  the  one  light  is  in  them  all. 

We  almost  always  make  some  plan  that  links 
our  birthdays  together  and  keeps  them  as  one. 
We  take  the  fortnight  to  do  something  pretty  and 
extra  for  the  house,  beginning  on  my  day,  and 
finishing  and  setting  up  on  hers ;  or  we  go  to  Dear- 
wood,  or  to  Boston,  —  to  Eliphalet's,  taking  the 
pleasantness  of  the  plan  and  the  starting  and  the 
anticipation  for  me,  and  the  better  pleasantness 
of  the  home-coming  for  her;  and  lay  up  thirteen 
days  of  things  to  talk  over  all  winter,  between. 
Or  we  have  somebody  to  stay  with  us,  and  keep 
simple  festival;  without  their  knowing  why,  per 
haps. 

This  time  our  hearts  were  in  the  same  thing,  — 
Rose  Noble's  little  wedding  havings ;  we  had  got 
into  the  middle  of  those.  I  had  almost  made  the 
child  believe  that  she  might  go  on  with  what  she 
knew  she  could  do  herself,  and  leave  the  rest  to 
Providence,  that  had  begun  to  bring  things  to  bear,  | 
and  was  setting  a  hope  for  the  bright  October  in 
both  their  hearts  that  would  never  be  let  to  come 
quite  to  nought. 


INTO  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PART  OF  IT.    129 

As  for  the  school,  Katie  was  to  keep  it  up  now, 
whenever  she  left  it ;  so  that  made  no  difference. 

And  there  was  something  I  had  got  into  my  head 
to  do,  that  I  could  do  best  by  way  of  helping  Rose. 

What  would  become  of  me  if  I  had  —  what  does 
become  of  people,  I  wonder,  who  have  —  thirty, 
or  three  hundred  thousand  to  do  with  and  to  ac 
count  for  ?  My  outings  crowd  so  with  these  three 
thousand  opportunities  of  mine.  For  I  mean  to 
spend  them  every  one  somehow ;  and  put  out  what 
they  get  at  interest.  I  shall  have  it  all  my  life  to 
be  glad  of  ;  and  the  gladness  of  it  shall  be  growing 
in  other  lives.  Bank  interest  is  n't  the  only  inter 
est,  even  in  common,  selfish  money-using.  A  man 
failed  and  they  took  all  his  money  away ;  that  was 
all  they  could  find  though  ;  he  said  he  'd  had  forty 
years  of  good  living,  and  they  could  n't  touch  that. 

How  can  I  tell  that  I  should  be  here  to  use  it  as 
it  came,  —  the  little  income,  —  two  or  three  hun 
dred  a  year  ?  Or  that  some  trouble  of  ours  should 
not  claim  it  or  sweep  it  all  away?  Or  that  I 
should  keep  my  good  mind  even,  and  do  with  it 
the  best  it  could  do,  and  not  be  tempted  too  much, 
here  and  there,  in  my  own  living  and  having  ? 

Of  course  I  could  fix  it  somehow,  to  all  prob 
ability  ;  I  could  endow,  or  bequeath  ;  but  I  believe 


130  PATIENCE  STRONG' 'S  OUTINGS. 

so  in  that  other,  living,  interest,  better  than  the 
dollars  that  grow  out  of  dollars,  and  can  only  do 
dollars'  worth  as  they  come,  after  all.  Nothing 
stops ;  percentage  is  only  the  sign  of  a  realer  thing. 
The  box  of  ointment  might  have  been  turned  into 
three  hundred  pence,  and  doled  out  here  and 
there  ;  but  it  was  all  poured  on  Jesus'  head  ;  and 
the  perfume  of  it  has  come  down  into  the  whole 
world,  and  the  years  of  our  Lord,  and  has  filled 
this  room  of  the  Father  full. 

I  have  got  Seelie  Eubb  on  my  hands  now.  Of 
course.  Why  are  we  shown  first  one  thing,  and 
then  another?  First  blue  books  full  of  money- 
orders;  and  then  Seelie  Kubbs,  — if  we  're  not  to 
put  this  and  that  together  ? 

Why  should  n't  I  spell  after  the  Lord  as  fast  as 
He  puts  his  finger  on  the  letters  ?  Dollars  —  or 
any  gifts  —  are  only  illuminated  initials  ;  the  shine 
of  them  is  only  the  leading  to  what  comes  next ;  the 
little  plain  black  print  that  joins  the  meaning  on. 

Seelie  Kubb's  little  pale  face  and  tired  figure 
did  n't  stop  under  the  locusts,  and  look  over  into 
our  side-yard  that  very  next  Monday  when  I  was 
shaking  my  duster  out  of  the  parlor  window,  with 
out  coming  into  my  parsing  and  spelling.  Every 
body  must  study  their  own  primer. 


INTO  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PAET  OF  IT.    131 

"  Won't  you  come  in  ?  "  said  I.  "  You  've  had  a 
long  walk  from  the  village." 

She  looked  surprised.  She  had  never  been  into 
our  house  in  her  life.  She  had  come  by  twenty 
houses  that  morning  that  she  had  never  been  into. 

The  door  stood  open,  and  I  went  round  and 
stepped  out  on  the  porch.  She  turned  in  at  the 
gate,  to  answer  me  civilly  within  earshot. 

"  I  don't  know,  —  I  guess  not,  —  I  'm  very  much 
obliged  ;  I  was  out  for  a  little  fresh  air.  It 's  so 
different  in  the  village,  you  see." 

"  Come  right  in,  and  have  a  glass  of  milk,  Seelie. 
That  's  different  in  the  village  too." 

I  brought  her  some  morning's  milk,  —  we  always 
set  away  one  or  two  tumblers  to  cream  over  for 
drinking ;  you  get  the  sweet  top-flavor  all  through, 
so,  —  and  a  slice  of  mother's  sponge  cake  on  a 
plate. 

"  Why,  you  're  very  kind,"  said  Seelie  simply. 
"I  don't  know  as  I  ought  to  let  you  take  the 
trouble.  How  pleasant  it  is  here  !  " 

She  sat  by  the  west  window,  up  which  the  creep 
ers  came,  and  beyond  which  was  the  chestnut 
shade.  It  was  different  from  Miss  Widger's  little 
shop,  where  she  sat  and  worked  at  dress-making, 
and  where  a  geranium  pot  and  a  great  white  cat 


132  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

with  pink  bows   in  its  ears  filled  up  the  window- 
seat,  and  the  dust  of  the  street  came  drifting  in. 

"  If  shops  did  n't  only  have  to  be  in  villages  ! " 
Seelie  said. 

"  Yes,  if  work  could  all  be  done  in  the  pleasant 
green  places  !  I  think  of  that,  sometimes,  in  the 
village  and  in  town.  How  the  work  of  the  world 
overlays  the  world,  and  blots  the  color  of  it  out. 
How  men  come  with  their  mills  and  theirnBIacE^ 
smithing  into  the  woods  by  the  rivers,  and  how 
other  things  have  to  come  after,  till  everything  is 
graveled  and  planked  and  bricked  and  crowded 
up,  and  the  beauty  is  buried,  and  a  stone  put  over 
it.  And  yet  the  sweet  earth  with  the  seeds  in  it 
is  underneath  all  the  while,  and  the  blue  and  the 
clouds  are  overhead,  and  it 's  always  a  place  that 
might  be,  and  that  there  are  some  scraps  left  of,  — 
trees  and  water,  and  grass  blades  coming  up  be 
tween  the  bricks,  —  after  all." 

"  If  it  was  only  the  planks  and  the  dust,"  said 
Seelie.  "  But  it 's  getting  pretty  bad  lately  with 
Badsham's  smoke,  since  he  set  the  new  chimneys 
going.  They  come  right  up  out  of  the  hollow,  and 
so  just  send  that  yellow  choke  into  our  windows. 
Once  or  twice  every  day,  —  when  they  fire  up  or 
something,  —  it 's  dreadful.  It 's  bad  for  mother, 


INTO  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PART  OF  IT.    133 

too,  since  she  had  the  pleurisy.  Oh,  it 's  another 
world  the  minute  you  get  this  side  of  the  hill !  " 

I  know  how  that  is.  I  know  how  the  woods  and 
pastures  meet  you  with  their  sweet  breath,  as  you 
come  down  just  ever  so  little  over  the  crown. 

"  You  're  not  busy  now,  then  ?  The  fall  work 
has  n't  come  in  much  ?  " 

"No.  Miss  Widger  won't  want  me  till  about  the 
twentieth.  I  wish  she  did.  Then  the  fall  hurry 
begins.  I  've  been  out,  now,  since  the  second  week 
in  August.  I  meant  to  have  gone  down  East  to 
my  uncle's  for  a  vacation,  but  mother  has  n't  been 
well.  I  wish  I  could  get  her  up  here.  It  would 
do  her  a  sight  of  good  to  come  up  and  breathe  a 
little.  But  she  could  n't  ever  walk  so  far." 

Green  pastures  and  still  waters !  What  that 
promise  must  be  to  so  many ! 

I  sent  some  sponge  cake  and  some  pears  to  See- 
lie's  mother,  and  the  rest  of  that  day  I  thought  it 
over,  —  till  it  fayed  in. 

"  That 's  off  my  mind !  "  said  mother,  putting 
away  the  week's  mending,  and  turning  the  stock 
ing-basket  bottom  up. 

"  I  don't  know  as  there  's  any  particular  good  in 
that,"  said  Emery  Ann.  "Something  else '11  be 


134  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

onto  it  again  directly.  I  've  spent  all  my  life  in 
getting  things  off  my  mind." 

"  Well,  that 's  it,"  said  I.     "  That 's  living." 

"  Seems  so,"  said  Emery  Ann,  and  went  out  of 
the  room. 

"  Mother,  I  want  to  do  something  rather  queer," 
I  began,  as  soon  as  she  had  gone.  "  I  've  been 
thinking  of  it  these  two  days.  It 's  on  my  mind." 

"  Well,  childie  ?  "  said  mother,  with  faith  and 
patience  in  her  voice. 

I  did  n't  want  to  try  them  too  far.  She  might  n't 
altogether  like  it,  and  quite  reasonably. 

"  Would  you  mind  ?  Would  you  think  it  very 
queer  ?  I  've  looked  at  it  till  I  can't  tell.  It 's  as 
straight  as  can  be  in  a  New  Testament  light." 

"I  hope  my  spectacles  won't  make  it  crooked 
then,"  said  mother.  As  if  she  ever  crooked  any 
thing  ! 

"  It 's  the  Rubbs  ;  Seelie  and  her  mother.  You 
know  Seelie,  in  Miss  Widger's  little  shop  ?  The 
very  thing  that  makes  it  queer  is  the  New  Testa 
ment  part  of  it." 

Mother  smoothed  her  gown  over  her  lap,  and 
said  nothing  ;  waiting  quietly  for  me  for  me  to  end 
my  shying  about,  and  come  to  the  New  Testament 
part  of  it. 


INTO  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PAET  OF  IT.    135 

She  smoothed  her  gown  down  so,  when  she  was 
ready  and  attentive  ;  when  she  had  put  her  own 
affairs  out  of  her  thought  for  the  minute,  and 
*  waited  to  take  in  somebody's  else ;  just  as  she 
might  lay  her  work  out  of  her  hands,  and  smooth 
her  lap  to  take  a  child  up,  and  hear  what  it  had 
got  to  say.  I  could  talk  out  freer  when  it  came  to 
this  pleasant  sign  of  hers. 

"  I  want  to  ask  them  right  up  here,  mother,  for  a 
while.  They  're  strangers,  but  I  'd  like  to  take  them 
in.  That 's  the  queerness,  —  and  the  other  part." 

Then  I  went  on  braver. 

"You  see  they're  choked  out  with  Badsham's 
smoke.  And  Seelie  got  tired  with  her  hot-weather 
work,  and  never  got  rested ;  her  mother 's  been 
sick.  And  she  crawls  up  here  for  a  breath  of 
pasture  air,  —  and  can't  take  it  home  to  her  mother 
in  a  basket.  And  it  fits  all  round,  as  the  right 
piece  always  does.  Rose  has  got  her  dress-making 
to  do,  and  we  meant  to  help  her  along  at  any  rate ; 
and  Seelie  can  measure  and  baste  her  here  at 
home,  and  save  her  ever  so  much  hindrance ;  and 
we  can  all  be  together,  —  all  the  birthday-time, 
motherdie,  —  in  such  a  satisfaction  !  " 

"Well,  dearie,  I  see  the  New  Testament  part 
of  it ;  but  where  's  the  queerness  ?  " 


136  PATIENCE  STEONG'S  OUTINGS. 

And  the  darling  little  woman  smoothed  out  her 
lap  again,  motherly  and  welcoming,  and  her  face 
opened  itself  like  the  daylight,  and  —  I  could  n't 
see  the  queerness  myself,  now.  It  had  all  come 
into  place,  a  part  of  the  things  that  are ;  the  set 
tled  things,  that  in  a  minute  are  no  longer  strange, 
hut  get  an  old  look  directly,  as  if  they  had  been 
from  the  beginning. 

I  've  got  to  skip  over  this  fortnight,  pretty  much ; 
I  wish  I  had  n't.  There  was  ever  so  much  in  it. 
Rose's  pretty  work,  which  Seelie  said  was  a  rest 
itself,  after  the  fineries  of  mill-girls  and  servants ; 
and  the  walks  down  the  lane,  and  in  the  garden ; 
and  Mrs.  Rubb's  talks  about  down  East,  and  their 
happy  days,  and  their  troubles,  and  their  moving, 
and  how  they  had  been  "  put  to  it "  to  get  on  here  ; 
and  Emery  Ann's  nice  breakfasts,  and  dinners,  and 
teas  ;  and  Mrs.  Rubb's  noticing  our  old-fashioned 
backgammon  table  in  the  corner,  —  so  odd  and 
so  handsome,  —  that  swiveled  round  and  opened 
over,  and  had  the  little  side  cribs  for  the  men  and 
boxes,  and  was  so  pretty  with  the  inlaying  of  two- 
colored  woods ;  and  mother  finding  out  that  she 
knew  how,  and  was  so  fond  of  it,  and  used  to  play 
so  much,  only  their  board  got  broken  first,  and 
then  lost  in  the  moving  ;  and  their  games  together 


INTO  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PART  OF  IT.    137 

in  blindman's  holidays ;  and  everything  seeming 
so  natural,  as  if  they  might  have  been  friends  or 
cousins,  instead  of  strange  people  out  of  the  vil 
lage  ;  and  Mrs.  Rubb's  saying  that  there  was  "  one 
more  beautiful  place  in  the  world,  and  she  should  n't 
ever  lose  it  nor  forget  it ;  "  and  their  going  home 
in  Farmer  Graitt's  wagon,  with  some  of  Emery 
Ann's  bread,  and  mother's  cake,  and  a  pair  of 
roasted  chickens,  because  their  fire  had  been  out 
for  ten  days  ;  and  a  big  basket  of  pears,  and  Porter 
apples,  and  tomatoes,  and  some  Hubbard  squashes 
under  the  seat,  because  we  had  more  than  we 
knew  what  to  do  with ;  and  best  of  all  with  a  color 
in  Seelie's  cheeks,  and  a  look  in  both  their  faces 
as  if  it  was  glad  and  worth  while  again  to  be  alive. 

This  was  the  between-time  ;  but  I  had  something 
kept  back  still,  for  the  real  birthday,  when  mother 
was  her  dear,  bright  fifty-seven. 

I  took  her  to  walk  in  the  warm  sunset,  —  we 
were  having  beautiful  days,  and  great,  ripe  harvest 
moons,  —  and  we  went  away  through  the  cedar 
woods  till  we  came  out  on  the  Edge  Rock,  where 
our  land  ended,  and  a  piece  came  in  cornerwise,  up 
out  of  the  hollow ;  a  beautiful  little  piece,  three 
acres  and  a  half  or  so,  of  oak  and  maple  woodland, 
—  opening  out  on  the  other  side  upon  the  little 


138  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

twist  of  cross-road,  and  squaring  so  with  our  own 
boundaries  further  up. 

Mother  never  cares  to  own  things  —  just  for 
owning ;  but  sometime  or  other  the  old  home-place 
would  be  Eliphalet's ;  and  men  like  things  square 
and  shipshape  ;  she  knew  he  'd  think  of  it  by  and 
by,  and  she  'd  often  been  half  a  mind  to  speak 
about  it;  but  she'd  rather  buy  it  herself,  if  it 
should  ever  come  convenient ;  and  I  know  she 
would  like  to  call  it  hers  a  little  while,  too,  for  she 
always  loved  this  rock,  and  the  beautiful,  billowy 
outlook  over  the  trees,  and  she  had  memories  with 
it. 

Now  this  land  was  Rose  Noble's  ;  a  part  of 
what  her  father  left  her,  separate  from  the  old 
farm  which  was  sold  out  in  the  early  days  of  their 
trouble,  and  nobody  had  wanted  it  enough  to  give 
a  good  value  for  it,  or  it  would  probably  have  gone 
after  the  rest  long  ago ;  so  they  had  sold  some 
wood,  and  paid  the  taxes,  and  Rose  laughed  about 
her  "  real  estate." 

The  other  day,  I  bought  it  of  her  in  mother's 
name,  giving  her  four  hundred  and  twenty-five 
dollars.  And  to-night  I  had  the  deed  in  my 
pocket ;  and  while  we  stood  there  on  the  Edge 
Rock,  and  the  maples  were  splendid  in  the  sun- 


INTO  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  PAET  OF  IT.    139 

shafts  that  shot  through  their  bosoms  and  showed 
the  first  gleams  of  their  ripening  glory,  —  while 
everything  was  at  its  prettiest,  and  mother  was  say 
ing,  as  she  always  did  when  she  stood  here,  that 
there  was  n't  another  spot  on  the  whole  farm  like 
it,  —  I  put  the  paper  in  her  hand,  and  told  her 
that  the  Little  Red  Wood-lot  was  her  birthday 
gift. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

INTO   GOD'S  TREASURE-BOX. 

I  'M  sure  I  did  n't  begin  to  know  what  I  was  un 
dertaking  when  I  set  out  to  write  down  about  the 
Outings. 

Why,  there  is  no  end  to  them !  They  are  the 
forever-beginnings.  The  very  flow  of  the  river  of 
water  of  life,  that  cometh  out  of  the  Throne.  To 
say  all  about  them  would  be  to  make  a  Bible,  or  a 
world.  Even  all  of  them  that  there  is  in  the  very 
quietest  life ;  for  each  touches  and  takes  fast  hold 
of  the  whole.  Besides  the  think-outings,  and  the 
do-outings,  and  the  give-outings,  —  which  are  life 
and  love,  and  some  simple  shape  of  which  we  every 
one  must  discover  in  ourselves,  —  there  are  the 
come-outings,  and  the  find-outings,  and  the  grow- 
outings,  and  the  turn-outings,  —  which  are  the 
wonderful  gift  and  dealing  and  disclosure  and  pro 
vidence  of  God,  in  and  for  and  about  us.  It  was 
for  Life  the  Lord  bade  us  "  Watch ! "  Not  for 
death  and  doom.  It  is  to  Life  we  are  blind  and 


GOD'S  TREASURE-BOX.  141 

unconscious;  not  knowing  what  hour  He  doth 
come. 

It  Was  a  little  thing,  —  to  tell  of  after  words  like 
these,  —  that  made  me  think  of  this  so,  just  now. 

It  was  a  finding-out  of  myself.  I  have  painted 
a  little  picture. 

I  did  n't  know  as  I  could.  I  learned  something 
about  it  years  ago,  at  school,  as  all  the  girls  did ; 
just  as  I  learned  a  little  music,  and  left  off  practi 
cing  gradually,  after  cares  came  and  kept  me  busy, 
and  the  old  piano  gave  out,  and  everybody's  else 
had  an  octave  and  a  half  more,  and  the  new,  beau 
tiful  music  was  all  written  for  the  grand  instru 
ments.  Besides  which,  after  Aunt  Judith  came 
she  could  n't  bear  the  noise. 

I  think  I  always  noticed  lines  and  shades,  and 
had  an  eye  for  what  was  true  and  in  symmetry. 
And  somehow  it  must  have  been  "  mulling  "  quietly 
in  me,  as  a  lesson  does,  learned  over  night  and 
slept  upon ;  gathering  to  itself  little  hints  here 
and  there,  unconsciously ;  training  and  unfolding  a 
possibility  that  sometime  should  come  to  the  light 
suddenly.  I  suppose  I  never  darned  a  stocking,  or 
shaped  the  curves  of  a  dress,  or  looped  up  a  win 
dow-curtain,  or,  more  than  all,  set  delicate  flower- 
stems  in  branching  harmony,  and  made  their  bright 


142  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

tints  lie  against  each  other  in  the  accord  of  color, 
so  as  to  spell  the  meaning  meant,  without  this  art- 
instinct  which  is  the  translation  of  heavenly  lan 
guage,  catching  insensibly  and  laying  up  some  new 
and  beautiful  phrase. 

I  suppose  that  eye  and  touch  and  feeling  are  all 
educated,  by  the  commonest,  teasing  little  every 
day  things ;  the  trying  to  fit  things  and  lay  them 
straight ;  the  making  of  beds ;  the  setting  of  tables. 

I  suppose  an  orderly  room,  when  we  make  the 
order,  and  have  to  study  how,  teaches  a  lesson  in 
grouping  and  perspective,  and  Heaven  only  knows 
what  more.  That  one  cannot  trim  a  bonnet  with 
out  learning  truths  of  lines  and  contrasts ;  that  do 
ing  any  one  thing  well  —  even  setting  stitches  and 
plaiting  frills  —  puts  a  key  into  one's  hand  to  the 
opening  of  some  other  quite  different  secret ;  and 
that  we  can  never  know  what  may  be  to  come  out 
of  the  meanest  drudgery. 

The  Lord  hides  away  the  seeds  of  wonderful, 
joyful  life  in  us ;  and  we  sleep  and  wake,  night 
and  day ;  and  they  spring  up  and  grow,  we  know 
not  how. 

At  any  rate,  something  put  it  into  my  head  all 
at  once  that  I  should  like  to  try  to  make  the  beauti 
ful  lines  and  touches  that  I  studied  every  day  in  a 


INTO  GOD'S  TREASURE-BOX.  143 

certain  little  copy  of  Ellenreider's  lovely  cherub- 
picture  of  the  "  Gloria  in  Excelsis."  Gertrude 
lent  it  to  me  when  she  went  away,  to  hang  in  my 
room ;  and  I  have  looked  at  it,  and  into  it,  ever 
since,  until  it  has  seemed  to  grow  into  my  mind 
and  apprehension,  and  become  a  real  possession ;  as 
if  I  could  put  my  finger  right  upon  it  anywhere,  — 
on  any  secret  of  its  beauty. 

So  now  that  I  was  rich,  and  could  afford  to  try 
experiments,  I  went  one  day  and  bought  paints 
and  brushes,  and  a  little  square  of  canvas  which  I 
brought  home  and  set  up  on  a  shelf,  and  looked  at, 
wondering  if  there  would  ever  be  anything  on  it ; 
if  the  little  face  and  wings  would  really  grow  there 
upon  the  blank  priming ;  and  the  beautiful  mean 
ing  shine  out  at  me. 

And,  without  my  knowing  how,  or  whether  I 
could  ever  do  it  again,  it  has ;  and  I  have  got  the 
"  Gloria  in  Excelsis  "  for  my  very  own. 

I  have  a  feeling  that  I  could  do  other  things  in 
the  same  way  ;  that  everything  is  linked  together ; 
that  music  and  sculpture  would  come  ;  and  that  it 
is  not  so  bad  a  matter,  after  all,  that  we  seem  to 
get  a  glimpse  of  the  many  things,  and  scarcely  to 
achieve  the  one,  in  these  short  lives  of  ours  ;  since 
that  in  the  little  we  are  so  surely  laying  hold  of  the 


144  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

much  ;  and  that,  in  our  few  and  tiny  steps  upon 
the  earth,  we  do  draw  the  great  globe  itself  toward 
us,  with  all  its  wealths,  in  every  footfall. 

We  know  not,  verily,  that  which  is  laid  up  for 
us.  There  are  such  beautiful  things  put  by.  In 
God's  house,  and  in  God's  time,  there  are  such 
treasures.  It  comes  true  so,  what  I  wished  once 
when  I  was  a  little  girl,  and  mother  gave  me  some 
things  out  of  an  old  trunk  I  watched  her  looking 
over.  "  If  I  could  only  have  great  boxes  full  of 
things  saved  up  to  pick  out  from  always !  " 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  house 
holder. 

/  It  has  made  me  very  glad,  —  with  a  new  and 
large  forth-looking  and  expectance,  —  just  the 
painting  of  this  little  picture. 

I  have  got  a  little  easel  now,  in  my  window,  and 
mother  sits  by,  knitting,  while  I  paint.  I  am  do 
ing  autumn  leaves,  to  burn  upon  the  walls  inside 
when  the  outside  blaze  is  over.  I  have  got  the  gold- 
brown  of  the  hickory,  and  the  deep  bronze  of  the 
ash,  and  the  amber  and  flame  of  the  maple,  and 
the  shining  crimson  of  the  oak ;  and  I  am  grouping 
them  together,  and  unraveling  their  marvelous 
interweavings  of  glorious  color,  and  matching  and 
mocking  them  with  umber  and  carmine,  and  sienna 


INTO  GOD'S  TREASURE-BOX.  145 

and  vermilion  ;  and  finding  one  speech  in  the 
dead  minerals  and  in  the  living  leaves. 

Mother  is  so  pleased. 

But  her  pleasure  gets  a  meaning  in  it,  now  and 
then,  that  makes  it  seem  a  sadness  to  me. 

I  catch  her  thought  so  quickly ;  before  she  has 
fairly  got  it  herself,  she  says  sometimes.  We  do 
understand  each  other  almost  too  well. 

It  is  in  her  face,  "  Yes ;  one  thing  more,  to  fill 
up  life^and  to  satisfy ;  if  the  lonely  days  should 
come." 

Against  this  look,  I  thrust,  the  other  day,  a  sud 
den  word  of  blank  diversion. 

"  Motherdie  !  What  is,  —  mostly,  —  in  Aunt 
Hetty  Maria's  dark  closet,  I  wonder  ?  " 

I  had  been  promising  myself  a  talk  about  this,  a 
long  while. 

"  John  Halliday." 

I  had  been  forgetting  John  Halliday  these  ten 
years.  I  never  knew  him  much.  He  was  ten 
years  younger  than  I,  and  he  came  to  Dearwood 
when  he  was  seven  or  eight  years  old,  and  I  was 
out  of  my  childhood  then,  and  had  left  off  making 
the  long  play-visits  in  which  I  should  have  come  to 
know  and  care  about  him.  Our  busy  and  troubled 
days  at  home  —  with  Aunt  Judith  and  father— 


146  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

began  not  very  long  after  that,  and  I  only  heard  a 
little  bit  here  and  there  of  what  went  on  between 
Jack,  as  she  called  him,  and  my  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria. 

He  was  away  at  school  some  years,  and  then  at 
college  ;  and  then  I  know  he  went  to  Germany,  — 
to  study  professionally,  they  said  ;  and  that  he  dis 
appointed  her  and  worried  her  somehow  ;  and  she 
was  pretty  strict  with  him,  even  in  her  way  of 
doing  everything  for  him ;  at  any  rate  that  they 
did  n't  get  on  together,  and  that  she  stopped  him 
short  at  last,  suddenly,  and  called  him  home ;  but 
that  he  went  away  somewhere  again,  soon  after, 
and  had  never  come  back  to  her ;  and  that  there 
had  been  a  cloud,  as  it  were,  behind  her,  in  the 
lengthening  years,  which  she  was  afraid  to  turn 
and  look  back  at.  Without  really  knowing  any 
thing,  or  ever  before  asking  a  word,  I  had  felt  this 
about  Aunt  Hetty  Maria ;  so  that  I  understood 
what  she  meant  when  she  said,  that  day,  "  I  tell 
you,  for  I  know ;  "  and  I  was  not  a  bit  surprised 
at  mother's  answer  of  the  simple  name :  — 

"JohnHalliday." 

"  What  did  Jack  do,  exactly,  mother?  " 

"  Well,  it  was  n't  so  much,  perhaps,  what  he  did 
do,  as  what  he  didn't;  and  your  Aunt  Hetty 


INTO  GOD'S  TREASURE-BOX.  147 

Maria  —  Well,  she 's  as  good  a  woman,  you  know, 
as  ever  grew,  —  except,  indeed,  it  may  be  the  mis 
sionaries,  —  but  there,  some  people  have  n't  any 
whiskers,  and  it  's  no  use." 

"  Whiskers  !  mother !  " 

"  Yes ;  I  've  thought  a  good  many  times  that 
half  the  troubles  in  the  world  came  of  that. 
There  's  two  kinds,  you  see,  besides  the  cats' ; 
outside  and  inside  ones,  —  and  if  people  don't  have 
them,  why,  they  're  forever  knocking  their  elbows, 
and  breaking  the  noses  off  their  pitchers,  and  tear 
ing  their  sleeves  on  door-latches,  and  undertaking 
things  generally  that  they  can't  get  through  with. 
Your  Aunt  Hetty  Maria  was  always  rather  apt  to 
try  to  get  through  holes  —  and  put  other  people 
through  —  that  she  had  n't  measured. 

"  Jack  came  there  when  his  mother  died,  —  Mr. 
Parmenter's  only,  dear  sister ;  and  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria  never  had  a  boy,  and  he  grew  up  to  be  just 
like  their  own ;  but  she  was  always  strict  in  her 
ways,  and  more  than  all  —  if  people  only  knew  it 
—  upon  herself.  She  never  would  half  'let  on,' 
as  Emery  Ann  says,  what  she  cared  for  anybody. 
And  then  little  Mabel  died,  and  Jack  was  all ;  and 
then  she  held  him  tighter  than  ever,  in  a  queer 
way.  She  did  everything,  and  let  him  have  every- 


148  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

thing,  really,  only  somehow  she  took  the  clear 
comfort  out  of  it,  she  was  so  afraid  of  his  being 
spoiled.  She  gave  him  a  good  piece  of  cloth,  and 
a  long  thread  ;  only  she  put  a  pin  to  it  instead  of  a 
needle,  for  fear  he  should  make  a  botch.  She  sent 
him  to  school,  and  through  college,  and  out  to 
Europe ;  and  he  did  pull  the  pin-head  through, 
and  made  a  pretty  big  hole  in  the  cloth  ;  he  got 
into  a  way  of  having,  and  expecting,  and  spend 
ing,  more  and  more ;  and  she  looking  forward,  all 
the  same,  to  his  coming  back  and  earning  his  liv 
ing,  and  putting  a  man's  shoulder  to  the  world's 
wheel.  Especially  after  the  hard  times  of  '57 
came,  and  so  much  of  her  money  went  in  the  great 
Life  and  Trust  Company  smash.  Then  she  had  to 
draw  in  ;  and  she  expected  him  to,  right  off ;  and 
then  it  came  out  that  he  wanted  ever  so  much  more 
to  pay  up  with  abroad.  And  then,  at  last,  he  got 
back ;  and  things  did  n't  open  right  out  for  him, 
and  he  was  there  at  home.  Idle,  she  thought,  and 
not  in  enough  hurry  to  bestir  himself ;  and  though 
she  would  n't  but  have  done  for  him,  she  was  too 
high-spirited  for  him  to  like  his  willingness ;  so 
she  had  plain  words  with  him,  at  last ;  nobody 
knew  what ;  but  there  was  more  working  in  him  of 
independence,  may  be,  than  showed,  or  than  could 


INTO  GOD'S  TREASURE-BOX.  149 

well  stand  being  doubted ;  and  he  spoke  back, 
and  took  himself  off;  and  she's  never  seen  him 
from  that  day  to  this.  Once  in  a  while  there  has 
come  a  letter  from  somewhere,  just  to  let  her  know 
that  he  was  alive,  and  not  bearing  any  ill-will ; 
but  no  accounts  of  what  he  was  doing,  or  word  of 
coming  home ;  only  that  in  the  last  of  the  war  he 
was  a  surgeon  in  the  army  under  Sherman ;  she 
heard  from  him  at  Chattanooga,  and  he  came  round 
in  the  Grand  March  to  Savannah ;  that  was  the 
last  she  knew  of  him ;  and  she 's  proud  of  him, 
and  worried  out  of  her  life  about  him,  and  turning 
her  back  all  the  time  on  something  she  can't  bear 
to  look  at  or  make  up  her  conscience  about,  in  her 
dealing  with  him ;  and  she  's  grown  an  old  woman, 
and  her  hair  and  her  teeth  have  all  gone,  in  these 
ten  years." 

"  Where  was  he  before  he  went  into  the  war  ?  " 
"There  never  came  two  letters  from  the  same 
place.    I  suppose  that  was  a-purpose." 


CHAPTER  XV. 

INTO   THE    FAIRY   STORY. 

"DON'T  talk  to  me,"  mumbled  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria,  "when  I  can't  tell  which  is  teeth,  and 
which  is  bread-and-butter  !  " 

Aunt  Hetty  Maria  had  come  down  again  for  a 
fortnight.  To  go  to  the  dentist's,  this  time.  I  went 
with  her,  and  it  was  pretty  funny. 

"I  've  come  for  the  permanent  set,"  said  my 

aunt  to  Dr.  T ,  whom  she  had  not  seen  for 

three  years,  when  she  took  ether  and  pulled  his 
hair.  "  I  never  wore  the  temporary  ones.  They 
were  too  temper-y.  I  lost  all  my  patience  with 
'em.  They  kept  me  thinking  of  the  '  wailing  and 
gnashing,'  and  so  of  all  my  sins.  But  I  've  made 
up  my  mind  to  learn  how,  now." 

When  we  asked  her  what  for,  she  would  n't  tell. 
She  was  queer  all  through  that  visit.  When  we 
reminded  her  of  what  she  said  when  she  threw  Dr. 

T 's  first  work  across  the  room,  and  "  took  to 

her  gums  again,"  she  only  answered,  "Well,  1 


INTO  THE  FAIRY  STORY.  151 

could  n't  use  'em,  —  it  was  only  looks ;  and  who 
cared  then  ?  " 

When  we  asked  her  what  had  made  the  differ 
ence  and  changed  her  mind,  and  who  cared  now, 
the  teeth  and  the  bread-and-butter  were  in  the  way. 

When  we  saw  that  she  wanted  to  get  off,  of 
course  we  didn't  ask  her  any  more.  But  some 
thing  had  evidently  made  a  change  in  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria,  in  more  than  this  one  thing.  Every  once 
in  a  while  she  would  break  out  with  singing  to  her 
self  some  line  of  the  old  song,  "  There  's  nae  luck 
about  the  house,"  "  There  's  nae  luck  at  a'."  She 
could  n't  remember  all  the  words  ;  but  the  music 
ran  in  her  head,  she  said,  and  so  she  filled  it  out 
—  between  the  teeth  —  with  any  sort  of  syllables. 

"  Te  i  de  urn  te  diddle  um 

Te  diddle  cluni  te  —  dair ; 

His  very  step  has  music  in 't, 

As  he  comes  up  the  stair ! 

"  De  do  de  rol  de  diddle  ol 

De  do  de  rol  de  —  dore  ; 
Give  me  my  cloak,  I  '11  —  du  de  dol, 
I  '11  see  him  come  ashore  !  " 

She  kept  practicing  what  she  called  her  "  wailing 
and  gnashing,"  with  crackers  and  apples,  and  bits 
of  this  and  that,  between  her  visits  to  the  dentist's 


152  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

and  his  little  filings  and  fittings,  till  we  thought  she 
would  ruin  her  appetite  and  digestion  by  the  time 
she  got  the  full  use  of  her  teeth ;  but  she  was  in 
such  a  hurry  ;  she  "  would  n't  go  blundering  back 
to  Dearwood  not  knowing  what  order  of  natural 
history  she  belonged  to,  or  whether  her  bones 
were  outside  or  in.  Here,  there  was  nobody  to 
notice ;  but  there,  there  was  never  any  knowing 
who  might  come." 

She  had  one  little  double  tooth  on  each  side  left 
out ;  she  did  n't  care  ;  her  own  were  so  for  five  and 
twenty  years  while  the  six  in  front  were  good ;  and 
she  wanted  to  look  natural.  And  the  left  large 
incisor  must  lap  over  its  mate ;  her  old  ones  did. 

Something  came  out  in  Aunt  Hetty  Maria's 
face,  with  her  new  teeth,  which  had  never  been  so 
plain  there  before.  It  was  a  sweetness  and  open 
ness  ;  the  curve  of  her  lips  lost  something  that  had 
grown  set  and  hard  in  it. 

I  have  noticed  in  people  who  have  had  this  aid 
and  replenishment  of  art,  that  almost  always  some 
expression  comes  to  light,  suiting  so  curiously  with 
all  the  other  features  that  it  is  like  a  revelation. 
I  know  one  woman  who  looks  sly ;  and  a  man 
whose  jaws,  filled  out  with  their  new  furnishing, 
gleam  cruel,  like  a  tiger's.  I  can  think  of  others 


INTO  THE  FAIEY  STORY,  153 

who  have  had  disfigurement  and  disguise  replaced 
with  what  seems  more  truly  to  belong  to  them, 
and  to  have  been  intended  from  the  first ;  faces 
that  look  more  gentle,  generous,  or  delicate.  And 
I  do  not  believe,  somehow,  that  anything  can  come 
out  of  us,  by  any  accident,  but  what  is  in. 

When  Aunt  Hetty  Maria  was  packing  her  trunk 
to  go  away,  she  spoke  out ;  her  mouth  was  made 
up  to  it  by  that  time. 

"  I  've  had  a  letter  from  Jack  Halliday." 

We  might  have  known  it  was  coming,  even 
before  Aunt  Hetty  Maria,  and  the  teeth,  and  the 
singing.  Why  else  did  we  get  talking  of  it,  that 
day,  just  a  little  while  ago,  —  mother  and  I  ? 
Things  in  this  world  always  come  marked  with  a 
"  to  be  continued."  They  never  rise  up  suddenly 
and  go  right  down  again  into  their  graves,  like  the 
South  American  mummies  they  tell  of  in  the  earth 
quake.  And  if  they  did  do  it,  I  don't  believe  it 
would  be  the  last  of  them. 

"  *  When  the  chestnuts  are  ripe  in  the  old  woods, 
and  the  new  cider  is  making,'  —  I  expect — some 
—  to  hear  from  him  again." 

We  knew  that  first  part  was  in  quotation  marks. 
She  said  it  as  we  say  words  that  have  been  laid  by 
in  our  hearts. 


154  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

"  And  then  you  have  got  to  come  up  to  Dear- 
wood." 

"  Why,  it  will  be  almost  right  away,  auntie." 

"  Yes ;  almost  right  away."  It  sounded  like 
music  and  dancing,  —  the  tone  she  spoke  it  in. 
Like  the  music  and  dancing  the  oldest  son  heard 
in  the  parable. 

"  Now,  where  is  my  second-best  cap-box  ?  Pa 
tience,  won't  you  just  see  whether  Emery  Ann  has 
done  pressing  out  that  piece  of  bobbinet  ?  And 
give  her  this  yard  of  wide  black  silk  for  an  apron, 
and  these  two  pocket-handkerchiefs." 

And  this  was  the  last  she  would  say  to  us  then 
about  John  Halliday. 

It  was  two  weeks  later  when  we  got  word  and 
went  up. 

The  old  house  was  all  open  and  sunny.  Aunt 
Hetty  Maria  had  delicate  little  lavender  ribbons  in 
her  breakfast  caps,  and  white  satin  ones  for  dinner 
and  evening.  She  had  left  off  the  old  black  lace 
and  purple,  except  when  she  was  dusting  or  cook 
ing.  She  looked  as  I  remembered  her  fifteen  years 
before. 

It  all  went  right  through  me,  that  morning  when 
he  came.  Just  as  if  I  had  been  John,  and  Aunt 
Hetty  Maria,  and  myself,  all  at  the  same  identical 


INTO  THE  FAIEY  STORY.  155 

time,  and  as  if  I  had  two  or  three  different  memo 
ries,  and  two  or  three  different  ten  years  were  be 
hind  me.  We  can't  help  giving  and  taking.  We 
can't  shut  ourselves  up  in  our  own  separate  years 
if  we  try.  Then,  indeed,  there  really  would  be 
only  the  threescore  and  ten,  after  all ;  and  God 
\never  thought  of  stinting  us  so.  He  need  not 
have  made  so  great  a  world  and  filled  it  so  full,  if 
nobody  was  to  get  more  out  of  it  than  that. 

All  John's  pride  and  resolve,  and  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria's  secret  tenderness  and  patience  and  pain ; 
the  work,  and  success,  and  the  waiting ;  the  mis 
takes  and  the  mercy;  the  long  silences  and  the 
shield  that  had  been  over  them  ;  the  good  end  and 
the  gladness ;  I  entered  into  them  all.  They  had 
been  gathering  and  going  on  in  ten  years  that  were 
also  of  my  life. 

"  I  never  meant  to  come  back  till  I  could  pay 
it,"  he  told  Aunt  Hetty  Maria.  "  It  was  money- 
pay  and  money-pride  at  first;  but  it  changed  to 
something  different  as  the  time  went  on.  The 
thing  you  really  cared  for ;  I  found  that  out ;  the 
proof  that  the  money's  worth  was  in  me.  I  was 
only  afraid  —  of  the  Boston  papers.  That  some 
day  I  might  see  your  name,  and  know  it  was  too 
late." 


156          PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

"  But  what  about  your  name,  Jack  ?  Did  you 
think  I  would  n't  look  for  that  ?  " 

"  My  name  has  been  in  the  papers,  now  and 
then,  I  guess.  Most  men's  have,  of  late  years. 
But  I  <iut  the  head  and  tail  off,  and  threw  them  in 
the  fire,  in  the  first  place ;  as  the  White  Cat  did  in 
the  fairy  story,  when  she  wanted  to  be  turned  into 
something  better,"  Jack  answered  lightly. 

When  he  said  that,  I  jumped  right  off  my  chair. 
As  true  as  I  live,  it  never  came  into  my  head 
before.  I  had  n't  remembered  it  for  years  and 
years  ;  but  now  it  flashed  across  me,  —  the  boy's 
long  name  as  I  had  heard  it  sometime  when  he 
first  came  to  Uncle  Parmenter's. 

John  Robert  Haile  Halliday. 

"  What 's  that  for,  Patience  ?  "  said  John,  as  I 
sat  down  again. 

"  I  don't  think  it  was  a  good  plan.  Or  a  right 
plan,"  said  I,  catching  my  breath  from  my  surprise, 
and  speaking  quite  decided  and  resentful.  "  What 
if  it  did  n't  turn  out  so  wonderfully  much  better, 
after  all,  and  the  head  and  tail  had  to  be  raked 
out  of  the  ashes  and  tacked  on  again  ?  Or  if  some 
people  —  somebody  —  had  come  to  like  the  middle 
part  best  ?  As  they  couhl  n't  ever,  perhaps,  like 
the  rest  of  it,  or  any  name,  again?  I  think  it  was 
too  bad  upon  them !  " 


INTO  THE  FAIRY  STOET.  157 

John  came  right  over  to  me  where  I  sat,  and 
deliberately  pinched  me.  So  that  nobody  else 
could  see,  however. 

"  Patience  Strong !  You  're  rather  confused  in 
your  analogy,  but  —  you  know  a  good  deal  too 
much !  "  he  whispered. 

Everybody  knew  it  pretty  soon,  though.  It  was 
a  turn-outing ;  such  as  they  pretend  to  keep  for 
stories ;  but  such  as  happens  every  day  in  the  life 
that  stories  are  made  up  out  of.  And  I  had  been 
in  every  bit  of  it ;  first  one  part  and  then  another. 
Whose  story  was  it,  I  should  like  to  know,  more 
than  mine  ;  or  half  so  much,  —  seeing  that  they 
could  n't  possibly  be  on  both  sides  of  themselves  ! 

It  was  a  little  hard  for  Aunt  Hetty  Maria  at  the 
very  first,  to  be  sure ;  just  as  if  she  had  only  got 
him  back  to  give  him  right  away  again  ;  but  almost 
before  she  knew  it,  she  was  taking  Rose  straight 
into  her  heart  and  home,  planning  which  rooms 
would  do  for  her,  and  thinking  whether  she  had 
better  put  up  red  curtains  or  white  ones  in  the 
long  chamber  ;  and  that  "  it  would  have  to  be  be 
fore  the  dreary  weather  came,  —  she  could  n't  bear 
to  think  of  a  wedding  in  November.  Mightn't 
we  make  it  out  for  the  thirtieth  ?  There  was  some 
thing  so  glad  about  October ;  the  very  sound  of  it 


158  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

was  yellow  and  bright,  like  fruits  and  sunshine  and 
tingling  juices  and  clear,  frosty  air." 

All  this,  taking  it  for  granted  that  Dearwood 
should  be  their  first  home  ;  that  she  had  a  right  to 
them  both.  All  talked  over,  again  and  again, 

while  Dr.  John  was  down  at  M making 

"  head  and  tail "  of  it  as  best  he  could  with  the 
Nobles.  And  then  he  brought  Rose  up  for  a  three 
days'  visit  to  his  mother ;  and  she,  in  her  own  dear 
little  way,  settled  everything  as  she  chose. 

"  Let  us  come  back  and  build  our  own  nest,  with 
you  to  help  us,  please,"  she  said  to  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria,  when  Jack  was  out  of  the  room.  "  Don't 
you  tire  yourself  all  out  alone,  and  take  away  all 
the  good  of  it.  You  see  we  should  have  nothing 
to  do  but  to  sit  right  down  in  a  finished  place,  and 
that's  always  disappointing.  People  that  do  the 
making  ready,  put  thoughts  and  thoughts  into  it, 
one  after  another,  with  every  little  fixing  and 
touching ;  and  then,  just  in  a  minute,  the  folks  that 
come  are  shown  in,  and  it 's  all  over.  Let 's  have 
the  thoughts  and  the  comfort  together,  please." 

And  so  it  was  the  nicest  nest-building  that  ever 
was.  We  were  all  there,  and  there  was  plenty  of 
room  for  us  all,  beside  the  long  chamber  and  the 
"  little  bay,"  that  we  were  fixing  up. 


INTO  THE  FAIRY  STORY.  159 

And  they  had  been  married  a  fortnight,  and 
Rose  coiild  speak  her  mind,  and  say  how  she  wanted 
things  ;  and  John  Halliday's  books  and  pictures, 
and  Rose's  piano  and  plants  and  wedding  presents 
had  all  come ;  and  we  were  nailing,  and  hanging, 
and  consulting,  and  placing  ;  and  nobody  did  any 
thing  that  all  the  rest  did  n't  stand  round  and  ad 
mire.  And  Hannah  Ferson  —  Aunt  Hetty  Maria's 
Hannah  —  whenever  she  came  to  look,  said  it  was 
"  so  pleasant  and  folksy !  "  And  Aunt  Hetty 
Maria  herself  was  everywhere  ;  and  everybody  was 
calling  her  from  everywhere  else,  to  ask  her  this 
or  show  her  that. 

"  Auntie ! " 

"  Mother ! " 

"  Hetty  Maria !  " 

"  Mis'  Parmenter !  " 

came   from  upstairs,   downstairs,  and  the  lady's 
chamber. 

"  Here  I  am,  —  all  four  of  me !  "  she  would  call 
back.  And  in  a  minute,  all  four  of  her  would  be 
there. 

"  She  was  just  the  spryest !  "  old  Mrs.  Whitgift 
said,  making  the  little  entry  carpet,  and  being 
stepped  over  twenty  times  a  day. 

"  Nobody  gave  me  a  silver  pitchfork,  after  all," 


160  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

said  Rose  Halliday,  up  at  the  top  of  a  flight  of 
steps,  hanging  a  basket,  and  looking  for  scissors  to 
cut  the  cord. 

Jack  made  a  stride  across  the  room  to  where 
they  lay,  and  a  long  arm  up  to  her  to  give  them. 

"  And  I  don't  know  that  I  really  see  the  need," 
she  added,  "  if  this  is  to  last." 

I  guess  it  will  last,  —  all  the  help  and  comfort 
John  Halliday  can  give  her,  —  to  the  end  of  his 
life. 

I  have  had  the  beauty  of  it,  —  I  who  never  was 
married,  or  like  to  be ;  and  it  makes  my  heart 
warm. 

And  mother  and  I  are  going  home  again,  now. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

WITH   THE   SUNDAY   STRAYS. 

IT  is  strange  how  one  little  glimpse,  one  little 
taste,  —  of  another  person's  living  or  gladness,  - 
stays  by  you,  and  opens  the  door  toward  all  the  j 
rest. 

Every  morning,  now,  when  the  northwest  air  is 
crisp  with  mountain  frosts,  and  the  smell  of  ripe 
ness  comes  with  every  stir,  and  the  sun-glory  is 
keen  in  the  clean-swept  atmosphere,  and  the  crown 
of  the  year's  joy  lies  upon  the  earth,  I  think,  the 
first  thing,  of  the  pleasantness  up  there  at  Dear- 
wood  ;  of  the  new,  bright  home  there  ;  or,  rather,  of 
the  fresh,  beautiful  soul  in  the  old.  Of  John  and 
Rose  standing  always  on  the  morning-threshold, 
looking  into  the  years  together,  as  we  look  into  the 
hours  when  the  day  is  prime ;  of  the  cosy  break 
fast,  and  the  after-breakfast  settling  ;  of  Rose  with 
her  work-basket  in  her  window  among  her  plants  ; 
of  Doctor  Halliday  reading ;  of  Aunt  Hetty  Maria 
looking  in  every  little  while,  as  she  goes  up  and 


162  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

down,  upon  this  new  acquisition  of  hers  of  young, 
beautiful  life ;  continually  wanting  fresh  little 
views  of  it,  as  we  do  of  pretty  and  comfortable 
things  we  have  just  got  and  brought  home. 

When  the  night  draws  in,  and  the  fire  is  cheerful, 
and  the  winter-lamp  is  lighted  that  has  been  set  by 
through  the  warm,  twilighted  evenings,  and  all 
the  comfort  that  has  ever  been  in  one's  life,  or  that 
one  has  read  of,  seems  to  wrap  itself  around 
one  in  a  delicious  fullness,  —  then  again  I  think 
of  Dearwood,  and  of  all  the  long,  happy  winter 
that  is  before  them  there ;  before  them  to  whom 
a  single  hour  together  was  but  a  little  while  ago 
so  much.  Of  the  pretty  worsted  work  Rose  meant 
to  do,  that  she  never  had  had  time  for  in  her 
busy,  careful  life  at  home ;  of  Aunt  Hetty  Maria 
knitting,  and  John  drawing,  or  wood-turning, — 
for  he  does  all  sorts  of  charming,  ingenious  things, 
—  and  of  all  the  pleasant  choice  of  thought,  and 
talk,  and  occupation,  which  that  free  time  gives 
when  there  are  no  old  things  to  mend,  no  hurry  of 
providing,  no  anxious  complications  to  unravel, 
such  as  come  with  the  living  on,  but  all  is  new 
and  plentiful,  and  smooth  with  the  smoothness  of 
that  which  is  unbegun. 

I  Why,  it  is  beautiful  just  to  know  of  it!     And 


WITH  THE  SUNDAY  STRAYS.  163 

they,  after  all,  can't  more  than  know  of  it  them 
selves.  Possession  is  only  intimacy  of  knowledge. 
The  good  and  the  beauty  of  it  is  the  fact  in  God's 
worldT  I  thmirthat  is  the  blessedness  that  foretells 
itself  in  the  "knowing  as  we  are  known."  Then 
everybody's  joy  will  be  fully  ours.  Then  they 
shall  sit  down  by  fifties  and  by  hundreds,  and  one 
bread  shall  be  given  to  all ;  and  of  the  fragments 
that  remain  shall  be  taken  up  baskets  and  bas 
kets  full;  and  worlds,  perhaps,  shall  be  fed  with 
the  crumbs  that  fall  from  the  Master's  table. 

But  the  worst  of  it  is  that,  if  I  don't  look  out,  I 
sha'n't  do  my  own  living.  That  is  the  reason  why 
we  may,  now,  see  only  in  part.  It  is  so  easy  to 
abide  in  that  love  which  is  only  loving  imagina 
tion  ;  the  love  of  act  may  be  waiting,  meanwhile, 
in  our  own  unlived  days. 

My  days  ought  to  be  very  full  this  winter ;  so 
much  crowds  upon  me  to  do  and  to  care  for. 

Now  that  I  have  found  out  I  can  paint,  I 
think  of  so  many  people  who  can't  buy  pictures 
that  T  might  make  them  for.  I  gave  Mrs.  Shreve 
a  maple  branch  crossed  by  a  stem  of  sumach. 
She  hung  it  over  her  mantel,  and  said  it  was  as 
good  as  a  fire.  I  must  do  something  for  Seelie 
Rubb.  And  I  want  to  copy  the  Mater  Admira- 


164  PATIENCE  STEONG'S  OUTINGS. 

bills,  with  the  lily  and  the  distaff,  for  my  dear 
little  mother,  at  Christmas  time. 

Besides  that,  the  new  horse-railroad  is  opened  at 
last,  as  far  as  Hibben's  Lane.  Only  five  minutes' 
walk  from  our  door.  Why,  we  are  almost  city 
people  !  But  mother  and  I  don't  go  in  much.  At 
first  I  thought  we  should  n't  be  much  concerned. 
I  did  n't  worry  about  the  Sunday  people,  and 
the  fruit-trees,  and  the  gardens,  as  some  of  the 
neighbors  did.  In  fact,  I  have  had  so  many  other 
things  to  take  up  my  mind  that  I  really  thought 
very  little  about  it,  until  all  at  once,  when  we  got 
home  from  Dearwood,  we  found  that  the  cars  were 
to  run,  and  that  we  were  to  be  Metropolitans  the 
very  next  Monday.  Things  always  do  get  finished 
up,  or  broken  off,  or  changed  somehow,  while 
you  're  gone. 

It  has  come  to  me  since  —  the  force  of  it  — 
talking  with  Seelie  Rubb.  She  was  here  one  day 
last  week,  to  cut  my  new  brown  empress  cloth. 
It 's  just  —  more  outings ;  these  very  Sunday  out 
ings. 

"  I  'm  so  glad,"  Seelie  said,  "  of  these  new  horse- 
cars.  Susan  came  out  last  Sunday,  with  her  hus 
band  and  two  of  her  children,  to  drink  tea.  The 
other  two  are  coming  next  time.  Why,  it  seemed 


WITH  THE  SUNDAY  STB  AYS.  165 

almost  like  Thanksgiving.  Mother  said  she  didn't 
know  as  she  should  ever  have  used  her  best  cups 
and  saucers  again,  —  they  'd  been  put  away  so  long. 
They  're  real,  beautiful  china,  Miss  Patience ;  and 
the  plates ;  there  's  only  seven  left  of  them,  but 
they  've  each  got  a  separate  figure.  There  's  cur 
rants  on'  one,  and  strawberries  on  another,  and 
cherries,  and  plums,  and  peaches,  and  grapes,  and 
a  cut  pomegranate ;  and  with  every  fruit  there  's 
a  little  blossom  of  its  own  dropped  on  one  side. 
Mother  says  it  always  makes  her  feel  like  people 
again  to  set  them  out." 

Seelie  set  up  the  shoulder-puff  of  my  sleeve  half 
an  inch  higher,  as  she  spoke,  giving  an  air,  I 
suppose,  more  "  like  people  "  to  my  plain,  winter 
dress,  than  it  might  have  had  but  for  the  little 
accompanying  puff  and  set-up  of  her  spirits,  as 
she  told  about  the  plates. 

"That  isn't  too  high,  is  it?"  I  asked,  a  little 
anxiously. 

"  Oh,  dear,  no,  miss ;  the  higher  and  squarer 
the  better,  now.  Why,  they  actually  put  little 
crutches  under  their  shoulders,  somehow,  they  say, 
to  raise  them  up.  And  what  with  the  buckram 
fronts,  and  the  panniers  behind,  and  other  things 
that  they  just  whisper  about,  —  why,  besides  need- 


166  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

ing  to  be  a  qualified  architect  and  engineer  before 
you  can  be  a  real  dress-maker,  I  ain't  truly  sure, 
sometimes,  that  it  is  n't  a  downright  wickedness 
altogether ! " 

"  People  talk,"  said  I,  "  about  Boston  not  being 
finished.  I  wonder  if  the  women  ever  will  be. 
They  've  been  added  on  to  and  taken  off  £rom,  and 
lengthened  out  and  cut  short,  and  humped  up  and 
flattened  down,  and  I  don't  know  how  many  differ 
ent  things,  since  I  can  remember.  I  wonder  if 
they'll  ever  find  out  what  is  just  right  and  pret 
tiest,  and  stop  there  and  be  comfortable." 

"No,  indeed"  said  Seelie  Rubb,  with  a  simple 
little  consternation  in  her  voice  at  such  a  foolish 
looking  for. 

"  Do  you  know,  Seelie,"  I  said  soberly,  "  that 
when  I  hear  these  things,  I  feel  as  if  I  saw  the 
*  abomination  of  desolation  standing  in  the  holy 
place '  ?  And  I  can  seem  to  understand  the  '  woe  ' 
to  those  who  shall  be  mothers  '  in  those  days  ! ' ! 

"  It  is  pretty  bad,  Miss  Patience,"  little  Seelie 
repeated,  shaking  her  head.  "  And  it  does  make 
me  feel  wicked,  learning  to  make  a  trade  of  it. 
Why,  it  is  n't  hardly  much  better,  seems  to  me,  — 
some  of  it,  —  than  selling  liquor  to  the  men  !  " 

"  Only  you  work  for  the  plain  people,  Seelie ;  it 


WITH  THE  SUNDAY  STRAYS.  167 

does  n't  touch  your  conscience  quite  so  closely. 
And  you  don't  contrive  the  fashions,  you  know,  to 
lead  the  silly  women  captive." 

"  Why,  Miss  Patience,  there  are  n't  any  plain 
people !  The  delaines  and  the  alpacas  have  to  be 
humped  up  and  flounced  out,  just  as  much  as  the 
silks  and  the  poplins.  And  there's  just  where  the 
wickedness  comes  in  —  or  out,  at  least.  It  is  n't 
so  much  for  the  rich  women,  who  only  drive  to  the 
dress-maker's,  and  give  their  orders ;  but  I  know 
lots  of  mothers  and  girls  who  have  to  spend  all 
their  time  and  their  brains  on  the  home-made 
things,  and  more  money,  besides,  than  they  've  any 
business  to.  A  merino  gown,  or  a  poplin-alpaca, 
is  n't  much ;  but  by  the  time  you  've  got  the  but 
tons,  and  the  ribbons,  and  the  braid,  and  the  hair 
cloth,  and  have  spent  a  week  putting  it  together,  it 
gives  you  a  feeling  in  the  pit  of  your  stomach  as  if 
you  'd  got  a  broken  commandment  there." 

"  But  about  your  sister,  and  the  horse-railroad. 
How  nice  it  is  —  this  coming  out  to  Sunday  home- 
teas  —  for  the  city  people  !  " 

"  Why,  you  don't  know !  "  said  Seelie.  "  I  go 
down  to  church  in  the  car,  sometimes,  now,  it 's 
such  a  long  walk ;  and  the  fathers  and  mothers, 
and  little  children  that  get  in  and  out,  with  their 


168  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

hands  full  and  hearts  full  of  the  country,  just  this 
once  a  week,  —  it 's  beautiful !  It  makes  me  think 
of  the  Lord  walking  in  the  corn-fields.  And  it 's 
true  for  more  than  the  walking,  too,  I  'm  afraid. 
I  guess  the  poor  things  are  pretty  well  a-hungered, 
some  of  them,  before  they  get  back.  They  don't 
all  have  home-teas  to  come  to." 

"  They  ought  to,  Seelie,  somehow !  " 
That   was  my   first   thought   about   it ;  and   it 
stayed  by,  although  I  had  to  turn  it  over  awhile 
before  I  could  quite  see  the  New  Testament  part 
without  the  queerness. 

I  dont  want  to  be  crazy-queer,  about  anything ; 
and  I  know  it 's  no  use  to  expect  to  provide  for  all 
the  Sunday  strays,  and  that  it  would  n't  always  do 
if  you  could ;  but  then  to  think  of  the  young 
fathers  and  mothers,  —  week- workers,  —  bringing 
out  the  little  children  into  the  blessed  country  on 
the  day  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  going  back,  any  of 
them,  worn  and  hungry !  He  always  had  compas 
sion  on  the  multitudes,  and  cared  lest,  possibly, 
there  might  any  faint  by  the  way.  If  we  could  get 
out  of  this  world  into  the  nearest  edge  of  the 
heavenly  places,  once  in  a  while,  would  the  angels 
shut  their  doors,  I  wonder?  Would  n't  they 
rather  take  us  in  and  feed  us  with  the  bread  of  the 


WITH  THE  SUNDAY  STEAYS.  169 

kingdom  ?  I  think  we  should  look  for  them  to  do 
so,  and  that  our  idea  of  the  heaven  we  may  go  into 
by  and  by  is,  first  of  all,  of  somebody  coming  to 
meet  us. 

I  thought  and  thought,  till  I  felt  there  was 
surely  something,  in  the  way  of  a  loaf,  for  me  to 
do.  And  that  was  the  beginning. 

Mother  and  I  talked  it  over.  And  so,  Saturday, 
we  baked  a  basket  of  crisp  gingerbread  and  fried  a 
panful  of  doughnuts,  and  Sunday  morning  we  set 
out  a  pitcher  of  milk  from  the  milking.  And  then 
we  were  all  ready ;  if  the  little  children  did  come 
along. 

Then,  being  all  ready,  I  began  to  be  afraid 
they  would  n't  come,  —  our  way.  So,  about  three 
o'clock,  I  said  to  mother  :  — 

"  Motherdie  !  I  believe  I  '11  put  on  my  hat  and 
shawl,  and  walk  down  toward  the  head  of  the  lane, 
and  see  what  I  can  see." 

And  mother  laid  her  spectacles  down  on  the  win 
dow-sill,  and  smoothed  out  her  lap,  saying  :  — 

"  So  I  would.  They  might  turn  off  the  other 
road,  by  the  brook ;  and  that  would  be  a  pity,  see 
ing  the  doughnuts  and  the  gingerbread  are  up 
here  ;  besides  the  lane,  that  of  course  they  would  n't 
know  of." 


170  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGjS. 

We  had  really  begun  to  expect  sofiie  special 
"  they." 

It  was  a  lovely  late  autumn  day.  It  seemed  as 
if  the  sun  had  done  his  summer  work  and  the 
spare  fragments  of  his  glory  were  flung  down  upon 
us  for  pure  joy.  As  if  human  creatures  might 
have  them  all,  now  that  the  grain  was  ripe  and  the 
grass  gone,  and  the  fruit  mellow.  It  was  like 
"  after  the  party." 

I  met  them  just  there,  by  the  brook  ;  or  rather  I 
saw  them  coming,  and  managed  that  they  should 
overtake  me  with  my  face  toward  home,  as  I  stood 
and  picked  some  bits  of  bright  leaves  out  of  the 
hedge. 

They  came  up  chattering,  —  the  little  ones.  I 
had  been  puzzling  what  I  could  say  if  they  did  n't 
take  our  road ;  indeed,  what  I  could  exactly  say 
if  they  did.  But  you  always  see  as  you  come  to  it. 

"  Let  's  go  this  way,"  says  the  biggest  girl. 
"  Down  here  where  this  pretty  water  goes." 

"  No,"  says  the  boy  sturdily.  "  I  don't  care  for 
the  water.  I  saw  a  squirrel  up  here  on  the  wall. 
I  want  to  see  where  he  goes  to." 

"  It 's  quieter  this  way,"  suggests  the  man. 

"  And  sunnier  this,"  replies  the  woman. 

"  Well,  mother,  what  do  you  say  ?     Say  quick  !  " 


"  WITH  THE  SUNDAY  STB  AYS.  171 

These  •  last  were  evidently  words  of  habit  with 
the  husband,  —  spoken  always  in  that  smiling  way 
and  cheery  tone,  —  meaning :  — 

"  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  settle  your  own  wish. 
My  way  's  yours.  And  I  'm  not  in  the  least  bit  of 
a  hurry.  So  —  say  quick  I  " 

I  took  it  to  myself ;  feeling  in  such  a  hurry  lest 
they  should  choose  the  other  road. 

So  I  "  said  quick "  just  what  came  into  my 
head. 

"If  you  want  to  take  the  children  a  pleasant 
walk,  ma'am,  I  can  show  you  a  beautiful  green 
lane  up  here  a  little  way  that  leads  down  into  the 
woods." 

"  Oh,  thank  you  !  Come,  James,  we  '11  go  this 
way,  if  this  lady  is  so  kind." 

So  we  walked  on  together,  and  mother,  looking 
out  of  her  window,  saw  me  coming  up,  just  as  if 
I  had  been  to  meet  Eliphalet's  folks  down  at  the 
cars.  I  almost  caught  myself  calling  up  to  her, 
"  Yes,  they  've  come !  "  They  were  so  exactly  the 
very  people  we  had  been  looking  for. 

Of  course  I  did  n't  suppose  they  were  hungry 
yet,  and  I  could  n't  do  everything  all  at  once.  I 
showed  them  down  the  green  lane,  and  left  them 
to  find  their  own  way  and  their  own  happiness  by 


172  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

themselves ;  only  I  did  just  bethink  myself  to  turn 
back  and  say  to  the  elder  girl,  lest  they  should 
happen  to  get  out  by  the  turnpike,  and  so 
round :  — 

"  Come  back  this  way,  dear,  and  stop  a  minute, 
and  I  will  give  you  some  flowers." 

So  we  were  sure  of  our  company  now,  mother 
and  I  ;  and  we  went  and  sugared  a  plate  of  dough 
nuts,  and  had  mugs  handy  for  the  children  ;  and 
then  I  sat  down  again  and  went  on  reading  to  her 
out  of  the  "  Schonberg-Cotta  Family." 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

INTO   OTHER   PEOPLE'S   BUSINESS. 

So  that  began  it.  And  now,  as  I  said,  I  have 
plenty  to  plan  and  to  do.  Because,  although  the 
pleasant  autumn  weather  is  soon  over,  and  the 
winter-time  is  no  time  for  Sunday-outings,  yet  I 
know  how  it  will  be  when  the  spring  comes ;  and 
how  Fast  Day,  and  May  Day,  and  every  day  that 
they  can  get,  will  be  bringing  them,  —  those  that  I 
have  got  acquainted  with  (and  it  is  wonderful  how 
one  gets  on  in  any  particular  world  of  people  when 
one  once  begins  with  one  or  two),  and  many  more. 

And  they  shall  all  be  welcome.  We  shall  have 
to  bake  bigger  baskets  of  gingerbread,  and  fry 
huger  pans  of  doughnuts,  and  keep  out  whole 
bowls  of  milk  ;  but  there  shall  not  one  of  them  go 
by  our  door  wishful  or  weary. 

And  it  gives  the  chance  for  other  things.  One 
doing  lights  the  way  to  the  next.  All  the  little 
paths  and  aisles  toward  the  light  of  the  Great  Love 
open  into  each  other. 


174  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

There  are  books  and  pictures  and  things  to 
look  at,  for  the  fathers  and  mothers,  and  the  little 
children.  Books  to  lend,  too ;  they  like  so  to  take 
something  home.  So  I  have  got  plain-bound 
copies,  and  copies  second-hand,  nicely  covered,  — 
quite  a  bookshelf  full,  —  of  pleasant,  useful  reading, 
on  purpose;  and  it  is  nice  to  have  plenty  of 
money  to  do  this  with  so  comfortably.  I  buy 
cheaply,  and  make  the  most ;  for  I  like  to  keep  the 
feeling  of  being  rich  behind  my  doing,  as  long  as 
I  can.  Some  things  must  cost ;  the  stereoscopic 
views,  for  instance.  I  have  two  glasses,  and  a 
great  many  pictures ;  I  can  never  have  too  many 
of  these.  Why,  when  they  get  out  here,  —  these 
friends  of  mine,  —  which  is  as  far  as  they  will  ever 
get,  most  of  them,  in  point  of  fact,  I  can  take 
them  right  on  into  all  the  beautiful  unknown  places 
of  the  wide  world.  Into  the  Alp-heights,  and  the 
Yosemite  ;  to  Niagara  and  Trenton  and  Mount 
Washington ;  up  the  Saguenay  and  the  Missis 
sippi  ;  among  the  Dalles  of  the  St.  Croix  and  to  the 
falls  of  the  Minnehaha.  These  are  the  people  that 
ought  to  go  in  this  way.  What  a  shame  it  would 
be  to  keep  such  wonderful  glimpses  in  rich  parlors 
and  libraries  only ;  for  people  who  can  go  far  and 
wide,  if  they  choose,  among  the  realities  ! 


INTO  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  BUSINESS.        175 

Of  them  all,  that  which  gives  most  awe  and 
pleasure  is  the  moon-picture.  The  great  telescopic 
moon,  hanging  in  black  space,  with  its  jagged 
mountains  catching  the  beams  of  the  eternal  sun, 
and  flinging  down  the  self-same  actual  points  of 
light  that  have  so  rested  there,  on  the  little  card 
held  up  to  it  for  its  portrait  two  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  miles  away. 

The  great  Nothing  that  it  is  in  !  The  upholding 
of  its  separate  round  mass  !  The  present  hand  of 
God,  more  truly  recognized  because  no  hold  is 
seen  !  Foundationless  !  If  the  old  Eastern  tradi 
tion  had  any  truth,  —  if  the  earth  were  a  flat  plain 
and  seemed  to  rest  on  anything ;  if  its  great  pillars 
stood  upon  an  elephant,  and  the  elephant  upon  a 
tortoise,  and  the  tortoise  on  something  untraceable 
in  depth,  but  not  beyond  conception,  —  where 
would  be  our  thought  of  the  environing  spirit? 
This  wonderful,  awful  floating  of  everything,  from 
the  sun-globes  to  the  meanest  atoms,  —  this  utter 
separateness, —  it  is  by  this  we  get  an  inmost 
notion  of  that  rest,  that  reliance,  that  nearness, 
that  strength,  in  which  we  lie ! 

It  comes  into  their  faces,  every  one,  —  more  or 
less  dimly  or  consciously,  —  as  they  look  at  this 
moon-picture.  I  need  not  say  a  syllable,  I  know. 


176  PATIENCE  STEONG'S  OUTINGS. 

It  will  tell  it  to  them  for  itself.  The  word  it 
speaks  will  bury  itself  in  their  souls;  a  seed  to 
grow  up  into  the  grandest,  holiest  knowledge.  It 
is  something  to  minister  such  sacraments  as  these. 

"  It  is  all  very  well,"  Emery  Ann  says,  "  with 
the  decent  mechanic  people.  But  how  will  you  do 
when  the  ragged  boys  and  the  coarse  men  get  wind 
of  it  and  come  along  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  I  shall  think  when  the  time  comes," 
I  answered.  "  And  if  they  are  too  coarse,  I  dare 
say  nothing  will  drive  them  away  sooner  than 
politeness." 

"  There 's  something  in  that,"  said  Emery  Ann. 
"  My  sister  Loviny  used  to  tell  her  little  boy,  — 
'  Don't  come  into  the  parlor  unless  you  can  be 
polite.'  So  one  day  he  stood  in  the  doorway  when 
she  had  company.  '  Why  don't  you  come  in,  Ho 
ratio,  and  take  off  your  cap  ? '  says  Loviny.  '  I 
don't  feel  as  if  I  wanted  to  be  polite,'  says  he,  and 
cleared.  It  don't  alwers  take  a  perleece  officer  to 
keep  folks  out  from  where  they  ain't  fit,  —  not 
even,  forzino,  out  of  heaven." 

Mother  says  she 's  "  proper  glad  "  we  thought  of 
it.  Dear  mother!  What  shall  we  do  when  the 
quaint  old  people  are  all  gone,  and  the  quaint  old 
words  are  all  used  up  ?  They  are  a  part  of  speech 


INTO  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  BUSINESS.        177 

by  themselves ;  not  common,  not  ill-bred,  nor  any 
thing  like  modern  slang ;  but  full  of  pure  meaning 
and  time-flavor.  The  old  Puritans  sent  them  down 
to  us,  many  of  them ;  this,  certainly.  They  were 
so  self-contained ;  and  words  were  so  chastened  in 
their  using.  Nobody  was  ever  extravagantly  glad ; 
nothing  was  ever  excessively  pleasant ;  only  "  pro 
perly  "  so.  Yet  the  sober  word  meant  all  that  they 
could  say,  as  much  as  our  words  do ;  and  the  mean 
ing  grew  more  and  more,  as  they  crowded  all  their 
feeling  into  it,  until  the  very  term  of  moderation 
and  restraint  came  to  have  a  most  lip-smacking 
sound  of  the  superlative. 

Sometimes  I  think  I  get  more  out  of  other  people 
than  is  fair  ;  I  have  grown  so  into  the  way  of  put 
ting  myself  in  their  places,  and  feeling  just  how 
things  must  seem  to  them.  It  is  almost  like  read 
ing  their  letters,  or  listening  at  their  doors.  I 
wonder  if  it 's  old  maids'  way ;  and  if  that  is  how 
we  get  such  a  character;  because  we  must  needs 
borrow  so  much  ?  I  wonder  if  it  is  the  essence  of 
prying  and  gossiping? 

I  think  the  difference  must  be  in  the  point  of 
view.  If  you  stand  outside,  and  peer  and  pick  and 
criticise,  —  if  you  look  for  what  had  better  not  be, 
—  then  I  'm  sure  choking  in  the  sea  is  n't  a  bit  too 


178  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

bad  for  such  a  haunting  and  possessing ;  but  if  you 
go  right  down  into  their  hearts,  and  feel  their  joys 
and  troubles  with  them,  —  I  think  that  is  even 
what  our  Lord  himself  did,  and  how  he  helped 
them,  and  "bore"  their  sorrows  and  iniquities,  and 
gave  them  of  his  peace. 

I  try  to  have  it  so.  For  my  imagination  —  what 
ever  that  is,  and  I  think  it  is  the  power  that  goes 
out  of  us  into  spiritual  places,  gathering  realities  — 
will  reach  forth  and  lay  hold  of  what  is  not,  alto 
gether,  my  very  own. 

I  go  here  and  there,  in  this  fashion.  To  Dear- 
wood,  as  I  was  saying ;  and  lately,  very  much,  just 
in  this  way,  to  Mrs.  Shreve's. 

She  has  had  a  piece  of  good  fortune.  She  has 
had  some  money  left  her.  Money  that  she  never 
expected  or  heard  of.  "  Things  are  never  done 
happening,  in  this  world,"  Emery  Ann  says. 
*'  Everything  can  wait,  but  chickens  and  children." 

Late  in  life,  after  many  pinches  and  worries,  it 
has  come  to  her.  Not  an  enormous  fortune ;  but 
that  large  "  enough  "  to  her  quiet  wants,  that  sets 
her  heart  at  rest. 

And  it  is  so  pleasant  to  feel  how  it  is  with  her. 
And  she  shows  it  so  simply.  Not  by  any  airs  or 
pretenses,  —  no,  indeed !  Only  by  breathing  free ; 


INTO  OTHEB  PEOPLE'S  BUSINESS.        179 

as  if  some  band  were  loosened  that  had  drawn  tight 
around  her  life. 

She  makes  half-a-dozen  new  night-gowns ;  "  in 
case  of  sickness,"  she  says,  "  it  is  good  to  have  a 
store,"  —  and  I  know,  with  the  high  price  of  cot 
ton,  she  did  not  have  more  than  two  new  ones  to 
gether,  for  many  a  year ;  and  she  sends  by  me  to 
buy  Coventry  ruffling,  by  the  piece,  for  the  necks 
and  bands.  She  gets  nice,  new  napkins,  —  I 
marked  them  for  her  with  an  old  English  S  in  in 
delible  ink,  —  and  she  hires  a  woman  by  the  day 
to  help  her  girl  with  the  washing,  or  when  there  is 
extra  scrubbing  to  do.  She  has  let  Dick  go  to  a 
tailor,  and  the  world  is  thereby  a  shade  brighter  all 
over  to  the  boy.  She  has  a  fire  and  a  large  lamp 
in  the  best  room,  of  evenings,  when  he  comes  home ; 
and  when  mother  and  I  go  over,  neighboring,  the 
whole  house  looks  as  if  it  were  always  so,  and  could 
be  as  well  as  not.  Nothing  is  very  strange  or  new ; 
only  safe  and  sure  and  hearty.  When  a  thing 
breaks,  she  says,  "  Never  mind !  "  not  keeping  the 
"  mind  "  all  to  herself,  with  a  pain,  like  a  secret  re 
turning  echo.  I  think  she  can't  help  a  sort  of  satis 
faction,  now  and  again,  in  a  little  loss  or  a  giving 
out ;  knowing  that  the  replacing  is  no  longer  a  tak 
ing  from  one  thing  to  make  good  another. 


180  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

The  way  it  happened  was  this. 

I  know  that  if  I  were  putting  together  a  story, 
for  the  sake  of  the  story,  —  which  I  never  meant 
to  do,  and  never  could  have  done  in  all  my  life,  — 
the  way  it  happened  ought  to  have  come  first ;  in 
deed  everything  ought  to  have  come  first,  except 
the  very  thing  that  I  was  driving  at.  Not  by  any 
means  with  A,  B,  and  C  regularity  either ;  I  know 
better  than  that,  too ;  you  must  "  say  it,  skipping 
about ;  "  I  have  not  read  the  new  style  of  novel  and 
magazine  writing  unobservantly.  You  must  dip 
first  into  a  little  bit  of  the  end ;  then  plunge  into 
the  middle,  talking  about  people  and  places  and 
things,  as  if  everybody  had  been  regularly  intro 
duced,  and  then  gradually,  by  little  dashes  and 
allusions,  catchings  up  and  hitchings  on,  get  the 
antecedents  and  the  connections  together,  with  the 
help  of  the  clever  reader,  —  and  nobody  else  has 
any  business  with  modern  literature,  —  in  a  manner 
equally  creditable  to  his  sagacity  and  your  own  in 
genuity.  . 

But  as  I  am  not  writing  a  story,  —  only  putting 
down  things  and  thoughts  as  they  come  to  me,  in  a 
very  plain,  small,  everyday  living,  —  I  put  down 
first  what  interests  me  most,  —  dear  Mrs.  Shreve's 
long  breath. 


INTO  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  BUSINESS.        181 

The  way  it  happened,  then,  was  this  :  — 

I  was  looking  out  of  my  window  one  day  when  I 
saw  a  very  queer  little  man  getting  out  of  a  very 
queer  little  chaise,  at  Mrs.  Shreve's  door. 

The  man  was  short  and  thin  ;  the  chaise  was  tall 
and  thin  ;  and  the  horse  was  a  roan,  chunky  and 
low  ;  so  low  that  he  made  me  think  of  a  little 
spotted  dog,  trained  to  run  between  the  wheels, 
and  that  the  real  horse  must  be  somewhere,  invis 
ibly,  beyond,  or  round  the  corner. 

The  man  had  wiry  little  legs,  and  a  round  ball 
of  a  head,  and  he  wore  the  roundest  of  brown  felt 
hats ;  and  his  thick,  short  sack-coat,  also  brown, 
set  out  round  his  body  so  as  to  complete  another 
ridiculous  notion  that  came  into  my  head,  that  he 
was  like  an  unfinished  piece  of  knitting-work ;  the 
needles  stuck  into  the  ball  at  one  end,  and  the  piece 
of  web  rounding  out  between.  And  his  name  was 
according  to  my  fancy,  and  bore  it  out  curiously,  as 
I  learned  afterwards.  It  was  Mr.  Knott  Webber, 
the  keen  little  Boston  lawyer.  A  certain  client  of 
his  —  Aaron  Eachfield  —  had  just  died. 

Some  years  ago,  this  Aaron  Eachfield,  a  master 
mechanic,  came  into  his  office,  for  the  first  time,  in 
company  with  Richard  Shreve,  whose  widow,  —  as 
he  said  at  this  point  of  the  interview  which  Mrs. 


182  PATIENCE  STRON&S  OUTINGS. 

Shreve  mostly  repeated  to  me,  word  for  word,  here 
and  there,  from  time  to  time  afterward,  quite  in 
the  approved  constructive  style  I  was  just  speaking 
of,  and  which  I,  with  the  due  cleverness,  patched 
and  pieced  together,  till  I  have  got  the  whole  in 
cident  very  clearly  and  prettily  in  my  head,  — 
whose  widow,  he  said,  he  believed  he  had  now  the 
pleasure  of  addressing. 

Mr.  Shreve  had  been  in  a  large  way  of  business, 
and  had  gone  into  many  building  speculations. 
These  it  was  that  ruined  him,  as  to  money's  worth, 
—  finally;  but  meanwhile,  he  had  put  work  and 
money  in  others'  way,  and  had  built  up  many  a 
modest  little  fortune,  although  failing,  at  last,  of 
his  own.  I  believe  there  are  books  somewhere,  on 
which  there  will  be  found  records  that  make  him  a 
heavy  stockholder  in  a  kind  of  Mutual  Company 
whose  dividends  pay  largest  and  best  after  all 
earthly  accounts  are  closed. 

"  I  've  brought  you  a  man,  Mr.  Webber,"  said 
Mr.  Shreve  to  his  lawyer,  "  who  wants  somebody 
to  draw  up  his  will.  My  friend,  Mr.  Aaron  Each- 
field  ;  my  friend,  Mr.  Knott  Webber.  And  now, 
as  I  have  an  important  appointment  in  a  quarter 
of  an  hour,  I  '11  leave  you  to  get  better  acquainted 
without  me." 


INTO  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  BUSINESS.        183 

And  that  was  the  last  Richard  Shreve  ever  knew 
of  the  business. 

Aaron  Eachfield  turned  round  to  the  lawyer. 

"  Yes,  sir.  I  've  laid  up  a  snug  little  property, 
of  some  thirty  thousand  dollars.  And  that  man, 
sir,  who  's  just  gone  out,  is  the  man  that  put  me  in 
the  way  of  it.  I  may  say  it 's  his  gift.  For  a  gift 
comes  down,  sir,  through  many  hands ;  and  in 
every  one  it 's  as  real  a  giving  as  though  God 
Almighty  were  n't  at  one  end,  and  a  fellow's  own 
hard  work  at  the  other.  But  that 's  taking  up 
your  time ;  I  beg  your  pardon.  What  I  want  is  a 
will,  right  and  tight ;  disposing  of  this  said  thirty 
thousand  dollars  in  two  equal  halves.  One  to  my 
wife,  Rebecca  Eachfield,  and  I  'm  sorry  to  say  I 
have  n't  seen  her  for  as  many  years  as  I  've  given 
her  thousands,  and  them  more,  I  'm  afraid,  than  '11 
do  her  any  real  good.  Then,  provided  I  leave  no 
child  or  child's  child,  —  and  the  only  one  there  is 
is  n't  likely  to  marry  or  to  outlive  me,  poor  thing,  — 
the  other  half  to  Richard  Shreve,  Esquire,  or  his 
widow,  or  his  oldest  child,  whichever  stands  to  rep 
resent  him,  if  so  be,  after  I  'm  gone.  And  that 
being  the  whole  of  it,  I  don't  know  as  I  need  to 
bother  you  much  longer  now.  When  it's  done, 
I  '11  come  and  sign." 


184  PATIENCE  STRONG-1  S  OUTINGS. 

And  the  little  lawyer  having  unraveled  himself 
of  this,  held  out  his  hand,  and  shook  Mrs.  Shreve's 
warmly,  and  told  her  he  was  glad  in  his  soul  to 
have  to  come  and  tell  her  of  it. 

"  For  Aaron  Eachfield  was  a  grand  good  fellow ; 
and  Richard  Shreve,  —  well,  you  know,  ma'am, 
what  he  was ;  and  it 's  good  money  that  comes 
through  such  men's  fingers  ;  and  I  wish  you  well 
of  it ;  well  of  it,  ma'am ;  in  my  soul  I  do !  " 

After  that,  I  saw  the  rest  of  it ;  the  little  knit 
ting-work  man  sticking  his  brown  ball  (apparently) 
on  its  pins  again,  and  rolling  himself  up  as  if  he 
had  done  his  stent  for  that  time,  and  getting  into 
his  tall  chaise  again,  and  rattling  away  with  the 
little  roan  horse  trotting  underneath. 

And  so  that  night,  happening  in,  I  saw  that  Mrs. 
Shreve  was  rather  nervous ;  and  lighting  her  lamp, 
and  putting  the  globe  on,  she  let  it  slip,  and  broke 
it  into  fifty  pieces  against  the  stove-foot ;  upon 
which,  while  I  picked  up  the  scraps  of  glass,  she 
sat  down  and  burst  out  crying. 

I  knew  she  couldn't  well  spare  the  dollar  it 
would  take  to  buy  another ;  but  I  was  afraid,  for 
her  giving  way  like  this,  which  was  n't  usual  to 
her,  that  the  knitting-work  man  must  have  brought 
some  botch  or  other  to  worry  her ;  and  I  began  to 


INTO  OTHEE  PEOPLE'S  BUSINESS.        185 

be  quite  angry  with  him  in  my  heart,  and  to  feel 
as  if  I  should  like  to  pull  out  all  his  stitches. 

And  then,  when  she  got  over  it  a  little,  she  told 
me  not  to  mind ;  what  made  her  cry  was,  that  it 
was  no  kind  of  matter ;  that  she  could  get  as  many 
lampshades  as  she  liked ;  and  that  nobody  had  ever 
had  such  a  husband ;  and  that  it  would  be  an  ache 
in  her  heart  all  her  life  that  she  'd  never  seen 
Aaron  Eachfield,  to  tell  him  what  she  thought  of 
him,  and  to  say  God  bless  him  ! 

And  if  that  was  n't  beginning  in  the  right  mod 
ern  style  to  tell  a  story,  I  should  like  to  know  what 
would  have  been ! 

So  first  and  last,  between  us,  it 's  all  the  same. 
If  any  one  likes  it  better  so,  they  can  begin  at  this 
end  and  read  it  again,  backward.  Anyhow,  there  's 
a  new  chamber  firelighted  and  warm  in  my  heart ; 
a  new  place  to  go  into  and  be  glad  in ;  every  time 
I  think  of  Mrs.  Shreve  and  her  lampshades,  and 
her  bonnets,  and  her  table-cloths,  and  her  night 
gowns,  and  all  the  little  things  that  used  to  fret 
and  trouble  her,  and  that  now  she  can  be  so  easy 
about. 

And,  as  Emery  Ann  says,  —  We  can  all  wait 
our  turn  ;  things  are  never  done  happening ;  every 
body  can  be  patient  but  children  and  chickens. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

INTO   THE  MIDNIGHT. 

WEEKS  ago,  I  wrote  those  last  words. 

How  can  I  bear  to  put  it  down  here,  —  that 
which  came  after? 

The  pleasant  heart-chambers  are  all  shut  up. 

God  has  called  me  out  —  into  the  darkness.  I 
grope  and  grope,  reaching  after  my  life  that  is 
taken  away  from  me,  and  set  so  far  onward. 

I  know  that  it  is  the  evening  and  the  morning 
that  are  the  day ;  I  know  the  morning  is  beyond  ; 
I  but  the  midnight  is  heavy  upon  me. 

O  mother !  my  dear,  dear  little  mother  I 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

INTO    THE   DAY-GLEAM. 

HER  empty  chair  is  before  my  eyes. 

The  little  stand  is  there,  and  the  work-basket ; 
and  her  spectacles  are  lying  on  the  window-ledge. 

Nobody  touches  them  but  me,  and  I  place  them 
every  morning  as  she  did.  I  do  not  let  the  dust 
'lie  on  them,  but  I  will  never  put  them  away. 

Yet  it  is  not  the  chair,  nor  any  place  that  held  her. 

When  she  was  there,  to  my  sight,  it  was  not  all 
of  her.  It  was  only  the  sign  of  her.  Her  real 
presence  was  in  all  the  room,  in  all  the  house. 
In  all  the  world,  lighting  it  up  for  me. 

Is  it  different  now  because  the  sign  is  set  else- 

I  L.1 

where  in  another  chamber,  higher  up  ?     When  I  ,  ^ 

was  down  stairs  and  she  above,  the  house  was  no 
less  full  of  her.  When  I  went  miles  away  my  life 
was  no  less  full  of  her. 

I  am  coming  to  think  of  it  so.  I  am  coming, 
through  days  and  nights  of  pain,  to  the  beginning 
of  the  sun-break.  Not  out  into  darkness,  but  out 


188  PATIENCE  STEON&S  OUTINGS. 

into  the  breadth  and  glory  of  the  many  mansions, 
has  the  Good  Father  called  my  soul. 

When  I  think  how  it  has  been  between  us, — 
how  the  blue  of  the  morning,  and  the  sweetness  of 
the  summer,  and  the  little  pleasantness  of  home, 
and  the  thought  that  from  anywhere  came  to  touch 
us  both,  were  the  things  that  held  us  really  close, 
and  that  our  hearts  met  in,  —  I  know  that  the 
bodily  presence  was  not  much,  —  was  not  our  liv 
ing.  And  that  our  real  life  can  not  be  broken. 

I  set  her  place  straight,  and  put  the  little  things 
about,  there  in  the  window,  and  make  up  the  dear 
look  of  the  pleasant  day  we  are  to  have  together  ; 
and  the  same  love  is  in  it  that  was  in  it  then  ;  and 
so  the  soul  is  in  it ;  and  so  the  pleasant  day  must 
be,  and  is. 

Does  not  she  know  ?     How  did  she  know  it  then? 

It  was  not  in  the  table,  nor  the  chair,  nor  the 
book,  nor  the  basket ;  only  that  our  thought  met 
in  these,  —  in  that  which  was  within  them,  rather, 
and  behind  the  signs. 

It  is  only  that,  —  that  she  has  gone  behind  the 
signs. 

Into  the  very  peace  of  the  blue  morning,  into 
the  very  rest  of  the  tender  twilight,  into  the  very 
joy  of  the  new-springing  thought  that  wants  and 


INTO  THE  DAT-GLEAM.  189 

waits  not  words;  into  the  continual  promise  and 
forelooking  of  the  pleasant  day  that  is  always  just 
begun. 

When  these  things  touch  me,  through  the  types, 
she  is  in  them  with  me,  without  the  types.  Just 
as  she  was  before.  She  has  entered  the  within. 
The  within  that  is  also  the  beyond,  and  the  un 
bound. 

Out,  into  the  wider  life,  —  into  the  spiritual 
places.  Is  this  whither  He  would  lead  me  now, 
by  her  dear  drawing  and  guidance  ?  Then  ought 
I  to  be  glad ;  gladder  than  in  any  other  leading  He 
has  ever  given. 

Only,  the  pain  and  the  strain !  The  reaching 
forth  one's  hands,  with  the  clog  of  the  flesh  upon 
them,  to  lay  hold  of  things  in  that  world  the 
things  of  which  may  neither  be  touched  nor  han 
dled ! 

This   blind  walking   in  the  midst  of  glory !     I 

~       •  « — —         / 

know  that  it  is  here,  and  close ;  and  to  her  it  is 
manifest.  But  I  am  as  the  beggar  crying  by  the 
wayside,  among  the  crowds  that  looked  upon  the 
face  of  the  Lord, — feeling  only  that  he  is  here,  and 
that  the  great  multitude  is  about  him,  —  crying 
only,  "  Have  mercy  on  me,  that  I  may  receive  my 
sight ! " 


190  PATIENCE  STRON&S  OUTINGS. 

Yet,  when  my  heart  is  warm,  I  know,  as  the 
blind  know,  that  I  am  in  the  sunshine  that  I  can 
not  see. 

I  had  a  dream  of  her. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  work  in  my  hand  ; 
large  work,  —  sewing  ;  and  that  I  went  down  the 
garden  with  it  alone.  I  came  to  a  wall  —  a  wall 
freshly  built,  — -  that  stopped  me.  I  wondered,  — 
and  then  I  remembered.  "  The  sepulchre !  In 
my  garden,  also,  there  is  a  new  tomb,  now  !  " 

When,  behold,  in  the  seeming  sepulchre,  a  door ; 
which,  when  I  opened,  showed  me  a  fair  room, 
full  of  sunshine ;  and  in  the  sunshine,  as  if 
she  were  the  heart  of  it,  she  sat.  And  she  had 
work  in  her  hand,  like  mine  ;  only  it  was  finished. 
And  she  spoke  in  the  dear  old  tone,  and  the  light 
was  all  around  her,  and  in  her  look. 

"  Childie  !  Come  to  sit  and  work  with  me  ? 
That  is  good.  Sit  here,  where  it  is  warm  and 
pleasant ;  sew  your  seam,  while  I  pick  out  the  bast 
ing-threads  from  this  of  mine." 

And  I  never  felt  her  company  so  dear  and  sweet, 
in  all  my  waking  life,  as  I  felt  it  in  that  moment 
of  my  dream. 

Words  woke  me,  that  were  spoken  in  the  spirit. 
"  I  am  the  Door ;  by  Me  ye  shall  go  in  and  out." 


INTO  THE  DAY-GLEAM.  191 

And  the  rest  of  it  came  after;  the  word  of  my 
vision. 

Motherdie  !  I  will  bring  my  work  in  my  hand, 
and  sit  with  you  in  the  sunshine.  I  will  patiently 
sew  my  seam  of  life  that  is  not  yet  ended,  while 
you  draw  out  the  earth-threads  from  your  beautiful 
finished  garment.  And  all  the  same,  our  labor  is 
one,  as  it  was  before. 

I  am  glad  you  can  draw  out  the  threads,  mother- 
die  !  the  threads  of  the  seam  that  I  have  still  to  do ; 
and  I  am  glad,  and  I  know,  that  you  still  work  on 
somehow  beside  me.  I  am  glad  of  the  sunny  man 
sion,  and  of  the  door  that  opens  easily  and  gently 
inward.  Close  by,  —  out  of  the  garden,  —  out  of 
the  nearest  pleasantness  of  visible  things. 

Everybody  thought,  at  first,  that  I  would  go 
away  from  here.  Why,  where  should  I  go?  If 
this  were  lonely,  what  would  the  wide  world  be, 
where  she  never  was  ?  And  if  this  were  her  home, 
where  her  spirit  clung  so  long,  where  else  should  I 
find  the  sweet  haunting  of  her  life  and  love,  that 
are  the  only  presence,  let  the  body  be  laid  down  as 
it  may? 

No ;  I  shall  stay  here.  If  I  went  away,  I  must 
needs  come  back,  haunting,  too.  And  I  feel  as  if 
I  should  meet,  in  the  spirit,  a  tender  reproach,  —  a 


192  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

sigh  of  "  How  could  you  ?  "  through  the  dear,  old, 
forsaken  rooms. 

At  first  I  was  afraid  that  I  should  not  have 
Emery  Ann.  She,  too,  had  made  up  her  mind 
for  me,  that  I  must  needs  go ;  and  her  brother  had 
written  to  her,  again  and  again,  from  away  down 
East,  at  Skowhegan,  that  he  wanted  her  there  to 
keep  his  house. 

So  there  came  to  be  so  much  said  and  thought 
about  it  before  she  realized  that  I  would  still  cer 
tainly  want  her  here,  that  it  divided  her  mind.  She 
felt,  she  said,  "  as  if  she  had  actually  moved,  and 
the  thing  was  now  to  come  back  again."  I  wanted 
her  to  take  her  free  choice,  and  I  told  her  to  think 
it  over  as  long  as  she  liked. 

"  That  means,  keep  moving.  Why,  I  shall  be 
all  wore  out,  going  back  and  forrard  in  my  mind ; 
and  good  for  nothing  for  either  of  you  by  then  I 
stop.  I  tell  you,  Miss  Patience,  you  don't  know 
what  an  awful  waggle  a  settled  kind  of  a  mind  gets 
into,  when  once  it  is  upsot !  " 

So  poor  Emery  Ann  lay  awake  nights,  and  came 
down  with  her  eyes  all  dropped  in,  in  the  morning, 
and  brought  in  breakfast  like  an  Affery  Flintwinch 
in  a  dream. 

She  looked  sometimes  as  if  she  wanted  me  to 


INTO  THE  DAY-GLEAM.  193 

question  her,  to  get  a  decision  out  of  her  that  she 
was  quite  beyond  producing  for  herself^ 

"  Well?  "  said  I,  one  morning,. more  as  an  answer 
to  her  own  eyes  than  as  an  inquiry. 

"  Well,"  she  replied ;  as  if  the  forced  decision 
were  coming,  and  glad  too,  —  and  then  suddenly 
caught  herself  back  into  the  debatable  ground 
again.  She  set  down  the  tray,  and  lifted  up  her 
hand,  moving  her  thumb  to  and  fro,  as  the  children 
do  in  the  game  of  "  Simon." 

"  Well,  ma'am,  —  Simon  says  —  Wigwag !  " 

And  every  morning  after  that,  for  about  a  week, 
she  would  set  down  the  tray  without  a  word,  and 
lift  up  her  hand,  and  make  the  sign. 

But  at  last  she  came  in  with  a  brighter  face  than 
she  had  worn  since  —  since  the  change  and  shadow 
fell ;  and  when  she  had  emptied  her  hands  of  their 
burden,  she  made  a  great  sweep  in  the  air  and 
brought  her  right  thumb  downward  upon  the  table, 
planting  it  there  as  if  she  stamped  some  solemn 
and  irrevocable  seal. 

"  Simon  says  —  DOWN,  ma'am !  " 

And  I  believe  it  is  down,  now,  for  as  long  as  we 
both  shall  live. 

I  asked  her  how  it  had  come  about. 

"  Well,  ma'am,  I  've  been  tossed  by  the  winds, 


194  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

and  in  jeopardy.  But  the  Lord  has  kept  me  in 
one  mind  now,  —  for  I  just  left  it  all  to  him  when 
I  found  I  could  n't  stay  there  a  minute  myself,  — 
for  twenty-four  hours  together ;  and  so  he  's  brought 
me  to  land.  I  can  tell  a  sign  when  it  does  come, 
besides  its  being  a  thankful  deliverance." 

I  believe  nothing  lifts  us  so  far  forward  as  pain 
and  hardness. 

I  do  not  think,  as  I  sometimes  have  thought  and 
been  afraid,  that  they,  in  the  heaven-peace  and  free 
dom,  will  go  on  so  fast  beyond  us  as  to  go  away. 
I  think  that  we  who  stay  and  bear  are  climbing  by 
rough,  grand  steps  to  as  beautiful  a  height.  And 
that  they  must  see  it  so ;  as  we  see  hard  lives  and 
great  anguishes  here,  and  behold  them  with  a  rever 
ence. 

I  believe  the  earth  life  is  grand  ;  almost  grander 
than  the  first  heaven  of  rest  it  reaches  to.  I  think 
the  Father's  angels  must  have  looked  with  a  more 
worshiping  awe  on  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  glory 

of  his  suffering  than  in  the  glory  of  his  power, 
e  &      j  r 

It  can  only  be  that  it  is  one  same  world,  where 
one  same  work  of  love  and  faith  is  done  under  dif 
ferent  conditions.  And  I  can  think,  somehow,  of 
how  it  may  be,  and  of  things  it  is  like. 

The  man,  for  instance,  grapples  numbers  in  his 


INTO  THE  DAY-GLEAM.  195 

brain,  and  sum  and  relation  are  beautiful  abstract 
truths  ;  abstract,  but  real ;  the  more  real ;  and  he 
feels  that  he  gets  hold  of  them  somehow.  The 
little  child  slides  colored  balls  on  wires,  and  cannot 
go  beyond  his  sight.  Yet  they  are  both  reaching  ] 
into  the  same  realm,  and  touch,  mentally,  the  same 
things. 

We  work  in  the  spiritual  relations  by  signs. 
The  angels  work  in  the  inner  things  themselves. 
And  these  inner  things  are  not  in  one  corner  of  the 
universe  and  their  signs  in  another.  I  believe  it  is 
one  great  Here. 

I  think  of  it  when  I  walk  in  the  streets  of  the 
wonderful,  busy  city.  I  think  of  what  is  there  be 
side  the  stones  and  the  buildings.  Of  what  they 
stanTTTor,  or  else  they  could  not  stand  at  all ;  of  [c,  *-. 
the  real  grandness  and  strength ;  of  the  thought- 
work  and  living  energies,  and  of  the  needs  and 
loves  out  of  which  these  things  grow  ;  and  I  think 
that  behind  the  things  which  we  "  behold,"  and  of 
which,  some  day,  perhaps,  "  there  shall  not  be  one 
stone  left  upon  another,"  there  is  something  im 
mortal  which  shall  not  pass  away ;  some  word  of 
God ;  and  that,  in  the  midst,  the  spirits  of  God 
are  walking  with  us  even  now. 

Of  God,  —  or  of  evil ;  for  the  kingdoms  may  be 


196  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

growing  together,  —  their  very  stones  interlocked 
and  cemented  ;  yet  in  the  unseen,  knowing  each 
other  not.  Divided  by  the  great  gulf  which  is  not 
depth  or  distance,  only  utter  unrelation ;  as  there 
are  powers  and  properties  in  nature  that  coexist, 
yet  never  touch  or  recognize  or  invade  each  other, 
because  they  have  no  common  end  or  tending. 

I  think  of  it  in  the  simplest  things  of  every  day 
and  of  our  doing;  as  our  tastes  develop  and  our 
life  expresses  itself  ;  as  we  make  about  us  the  look 
that  we  love  best ;  that  we  are  building,  so,  the 
very  home  in  the  heavens,  that  is  now,  and  shall  be. 

Perhaps  I  cannot  so  much  as  put  a  flower  in  a 
vase,  or  hang  a  picture  on  the  wall,  or  make  any 
thing  sweet  and  clean  and  let  the  sunshine  in  upon 
it,  without  putting  what  the  flower  and  the  picture 
and  the  sun-lighted  purity  mean  into  the  unseen 
mansion  that  is  here,  and  is  waiting. 

It  always  seems  as  if  one  did  more  than  the 
mere  thing.  If  I  move  about  a  little  furniture, 
and  make  some  room  that  I  had  not  before,  the 
range  and  spaciousness  are  not  just  exactly  the  feet 
that  I  have  gained,  but  a  grand,  indefinite  open 
ing.  It  is  an  idea  of  latitude  that  is  as  good  to 
me,  and  signifies  as  much,  as  any  breadth  of  empti 
ness  that  could  be  built  around  with  walls. 


INTO  THE  DAY-GLEAM.  197 

Children  see  this  poetry  of  things, —  which  is 
their  spirit,  —  always.  The  high,  broad  steps  or 
stairs  they  always  like  to  play  on  are  more  to  them 
than  a  mere  way  of  getting  up.  The  little  cricket 
in  the  corner,  the  nice  corner  itself,  the  seat  in  the 
apple-tree,  —  these  things  to  the  child  have  life  and 
importance,  because  the  child  does  "always  be 
hold  "  the  inward  of  things.  Growing  older,  we 
forget ;  or  greater  things  displace  these  little  ones ; 
we  can  sit  anywhere ;  yet  we  do  like  our  corner 
still.  Enough  lingers  with  us  to  keep  the  soul  of 
the  home-idea ;  and  we  go  on  gathering  round  it 
the  body  which  fits  and  sets  forth  the  spirit.  We 
are  "  building  better  than  we  know." 

I  think,  —  I  am  sure,  —  motherdie  !  that  we 
have  built  together.  That  you  are  in  it  with  me, 
still ;  the  home  that  this  is  the  sign  and  the  out- 
showing  of ;  the  home  that  is  not  "  very  far  off." 


CHAPTER  XX. 

INTO   THE   MORNING. 

THE  sunshine  among  my  flowers,  to-day,  made 
me  so  glad !  It  came  in  among  them  from  away 
through  the  far  heaven,  and  touched  every  little 
stem  and  leaf  with  a  thread,  a  pulse,  of  the  glory 
that  is  also  at  the  same  moment,  unbroken,  in  the 
deep  heart  of  the  Sun ! 

It  tells  so  much.  Everything  is  such  a  showing. 
When  we  begin  to  look  at  it  so,  all  life  is  such  a 
divine  parable.  And  the  things  of  this  world  are 
what  we  cannot  possibly  stop  in;  but  ways  out; 
every  way,  into  the  everlasting  life. 

Ways  out!  That  was  what  I  began,  in  my 
simpleness,  to  write  about,  not  knowing  how  far  it 
would  take  me,  or  how  much  I  was  meaning  in  the 
little  things  that  I  was  trying  to  say. 

I  found  out  what  my  "outings"  were,  that 
reached,  by  insight,  or  imagination,  or  sympathy,  or 
little  doings  of  some  sort  of  kindness,  into  life  and 
range  beyond  my  own  little  quietness  and  abiding. 


INTO  THE  MORNING.  199 

I  found  so  many  doors  stood  open ;  that  that 
which  seemed  the  very  stop  and  closure  was  only  a 
gate  that  swung  on  easy,  delicate  hinges,  to  let  me 
through  into  a  wider  place. 

But  I  hardly  knew  how  it  was  all  one,  —  the 
nearest  and  the  farthest.  I  hardly  thought  what 
narrowing  of  loss  and  pain  it  would  be  that  should 
come  and  shut  me  in  for  a  season,  only  to  broaden 
out  —  as  it  is  broadening  —  into  glimpses  of  that 
life  our  living  all  takes  hold  of,_and  all  our  loving^ 
is  projected  into;  of  that  kingdom,  the  gates  of 


which  are  never  shut  at  all  by  day ;  and,  as  to  the 
night-time,  there  is  no  night  there ! 

This  is  the  beautiful  Easter-time. 

Yesterday  there  were  flowers  in  the  church ; 
sweet  spring  flowers,  white  and  tender,  like  new 
born  hopes,  and  bright,  fresh,  living  green. 

To-day,  motherdie,  there  are  flowers  in  your  win 
dow,  —  Easter  flowers ;  white  and  purple  crocuses 
and  snowdrops.  You  love  the  crocus,  mother! 
You  used  to  say  it  was  "  such  a  comforting  little 
flower ;  it  came  before  you  expected  it."  So  I  put 
them  there  to-day ;  and  the  comfort  looks  out  at 
me  from  their  delicate  faces. 

The  house  is  pleasant,  mother ! 


200  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

The  winter  is  gone;  and  in  the  winter-time  I 
found  new  ways  of  making  pleasantness,  —  for  you 
and  me !  For  you  are  in  it  all,  and  it  is  for  your 
sake.  I  learn  so  the  deep  sweetness  Christ  meant 
for  us,  when  he  bade  us  do  for  his  sake ! 

We  are  not  lonely  here.  You  never  were  lonely ; 
and  I  would  not  let  any  dreariness  come  down 
about  your  home. 

When  Emery  Ann  made  up  her  mind  —  her 
good,  kind,  faithful  mind  —  to  stay  by  me,  —  by 
us,  mother!  she  had  a  hard  indecision  to  win 
through. 

"For  you  see,"  she  said,  "the  main  thing  is, 
that  now  Matilda  is  going  to  be  married,  ma  was 
talkin'  some  of  breakin'  up  and  going  to  Penuel's 
to  live.  And  she  and  little  Rhodory  would  kind  o' 
want  somebody  along  with  'em  this  winter,  because 
Penuel  thinks  of  going  in." 

"  In  ?     Where  ?  "  I  asked  her. 

"  Camp.  Lumbering.  They  would  n't  hear  from 
him,  may  be,  for  six  months ;  and  then,  there  'd  be 
no  tellin'  what  first.  It 's  a  precious  anxious  time 
in  the  spring,  you  may  believe,  amongst  the  lumber 
men's  folks,  up  and  down  the  Kennebec.  When 
the  river  comes  tearin'  and  ragin'  by  their  doors 
and  windows,  day  long  and  night  long,  straight 


INTO  THE  MORNING.  201 

from  where  the  boys  are,  as  if  it  did  bring  news ; 
and  they  can  think  of  nothing  else.  When  they 
know  the  big  rafts  are  making,  and  the  log-drivin' 
beginnm',  and  the  freshets,  and  the  jams ;  and 
them  that  comes  home  safe  '11  be  most  sure  to  bring 
some  news  of  trouble  for  somebody,  out  of  the  six 
months'  winter,  and  the  silence,  and  the  danger. 
I  did  think  I  'd  ought  to  be  with  her." 

It  was  the  same  love,  motherdie !  Yours  and 
mine.  What  could  I  say,  then? 

I  feel  so  tender  for  everybody's  mother  now ; 
and  for  all  women  who  are  beginning  to  grow  old. 

That  is  what  mother,  and  daughter,  and  sister 
hood,  and  all,  are  given  for.  Little  bits  of  what 
holds  all  together.  The  heart-work  and  the  heart- 
life  of  the  world.  So  that  all  motherliness  is  our 
mother's,  and  all  child's  love  and  brother's  love,  or 
even  what  might  be,  is  ours.  As  it  was  His  who 
said,  "  Of  these  who  do  the  Father's  will,  each  is 
mina,  in  every  tie ;  each  is  my  brother,  and  sister, 
and  mother." 

I  saw  it  the  other  day  —  I  wanted  to  come  home 
and  tell  you  —  in  a  plain,  common  man  ;  this  beau 
tiful  recognition ;  and  it  warmed  my  heart  for 
many  days. 

I  was  coming  out   in  the  car.     The   conductor 


202  PATIENCE  STBONG'S  OUTINGS. 

was  a  young,  bluff,  fresh-faced  fellow ;  and  among 
the  passengers  was  a  tidy,  comfortable  old  Scotch 
woman.  She  "  wanted  to  stop  at  Mrs.  M'H- 
very's  ;  a  little,  low,  brown  house  with  a  lattice 
work  porch  way,  and  steps  through  it  up  to  the  door. 
Did  he  know  ?  Just  past  Grover's  Corner." 

"  All  right,  mother  !  "  says  the  young  conductor. 
That  touched  me  to  begin  with,  and  made  me 
watch. 

By  and  by,  the  woman  and  I,  and  a  little  boy 
who  jumped  on  to  the  platform,  and  called  the  con 
ductor  "  George,"  with  a  great  air  of  pride  in  the 
familiarity,  were  the  only  people  left.  And  then 
it  came  out  that  she  had  but  ten  cents'  change  to 
pay  her  fare,  which  should  be  twelve. 

"  I  've  got,"  she  said,  looking  in  the  young  man's 
honest  blue  eyes,  and  putting  her  hand  toward  the 
bosom  of  her  gown,  "  a  bill ;  it 's  twenty  dollars  ; 
but  I  took  ten  cents  for  my  fare,  for  that  was  all 
Susannah  said  it  would  be." 

"Never  mind,  mother,"  says  George  again. 
"  All  right."  And  took  the  ten  cents. 

"  I  believe,"  says  the  Scotchwoman,  "  you  must 
be  from  the  old  country  yourself." 

"  No,  I  'm  a  Yankee.  We  ain't  all  lean  kine, 
mother !  " 


INTO  THE  MORNING.  208 

"  What  did  you  call  her  'mother '  for,  George  ?  " 
whispered  the  boy,  as  his  friend  in  authority  pulled 
the  strap,  and  chivalrously  helped  the  old  lady 
down  before  the  latticed  porchway,  and  then 
sprang  on  again  while  the  car  started.  "  She  is  n't 
your  mother." 

"She's  somebody's  mother,"  said  George. 
"  And  I  'm  somebody's  son.  It 's  all  the  same. 
The  world 's  all  fathers  and  mothers  and  chil 
dren.  Don't  you  see  ?  " 

It  was  beautiful  that  he  saw ;  and  it  did  me  days' 
good ;  and  in  my  heart  I  turn  with  it  to  you,  as  I 
do  with  everything. 

So  I  said  to  Emery  Ann,  "  Why  not  ask  the 
mother  here  to  spend  the  winter  with  you  ?  She 
and  Rhodory  can  have  the  little  kitchen  bedroom, 
and  you  can  come  upstairs." 

I  felt  as  if  I  could  do  for  you,  dear,  if  I  only 
did  for  "  somebody's  mother." 

And  old  Mrs.  Breckenshaw  and  the  little  girl 
are  here ;  and  the  house  has  been  pleasant  all 
winter  with  what  ought  to  be  in  a  home.  It  has 
been  motherly  and  daughterly,  here,  again,  for 
your  sake. 

Is  that  taken  from  the  Lord  hi  anything  ? 


204  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

When  their  sakes  are  his  sake,  and  all  the 
mothers  and  sisters  are  his  ?  — 

See  how  I  write  to  you,  and  tell  and  ask,  as  if, 
somehow,  the  very  words  were  to  go ! 

My  "  outings  "  are  all  toward  you. 

Why  not  ?  I  think  that  all  providings  for  this 
life  show  the  providings  for  the  unseen.  Did  men 
piece  out  God's  work  with  their  cunning  device  of 
letters  and  messengers,  inventing  something  new 
under  the  sun,  the  pattern  of  which  was  not  in  all 
the  heavens  ?  Or  did  He  put  it  carefully  among 
the  possibilities  and  intents  and  the  things  to  be, 
as  He  did  the  oak-seed  and  the  mustard-seed  ? 

I  was  thinking  of  it  so  the  other  day,  when  word 
had  just  come  again  from  Eliphalet  and  Gertrude. 
Of  the  wonderful  thing  it  is  that  there  should  have 
been  a  thought  and  a  way  put  by,  against  the  need 
of  far-separated  people  to  communicate  and  under 
stand  upon  the  earth ;  of  the  strange,  possible  signs 
that  men  were  sure  to  find  and  put  together  as  they 
were  to  speak  ;  of  the  great  system  that  grows  out 
of  them ;  of  how  the  whole  world  is  busy  sending, 
carrying,  and  receiving,  and  the  very  air  is  alive 
with  the  rush  of  its  written  messages,  to  and  fro. 

How  it  was  truly  meant  and  a  part  of  God's 
plan  and  supplement  for  us  ;  as  truly  so,  as  that  we 


INTO  THE  MOBNING.  205 

should  walk  about  or  speak  to  each  other.  And 
everything  being  but  a  showing  and  a  parable,  it 
came  to  me  so  surely  that  He  will  take  care  of 
our  hearts,  and  of  the  spiritual  distances  ;  and  by 
his  dear  providing  messages  do  go  to  and  fro ;  that 
the  heavenly  air  is  full  of  loving  and  helpful  and 
remembering  words;  and  that  each  soul  may  get 
some  and  may  senJ]jome_eyery  day^  "  That 
which  is  spoken  in  the  ear  in  closets  is  heard  upon 
the  housetops."  Out  of  God's  mails  no  letter  is 
lost. 

That  is  what  I  think  about  what  they  call "  spir 
itualism  "  in  these  days.  That  it  only  cumbers 
itself.  That  the  thought  is  so  real  and  so  sure,  — 
that  each  soul  has  its  own  so  certain  and  direct  com 
muning,  —  that  this  dealing  in  signs  and  second 
hand  is  as  if,  in  a  land  and  a  time  when  everybody 
knows  or  may  know  how  to  write  his  own  letters, 
the  public  scriveners  should  set  up  their  stands,  as 
they  did  in  the  old,  untaught  places  and  genera 
tions.  I  am  afraid  men  may  ask  for  signs  and 
cling  to  them,  and  be  satisfied ;  not  seeing  the  mir 
acle  ;  not  perceiving  the  inner  splendor,  —  the  real 
spirit-working ;  the  kingdom  of  God  coming  nigh, 
and  already  at  the  doors. 

I  wish  I  could  put  into  words  some  inward  per- 


206  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

ception  of  this  life  in  which  we  live.  This  that  we 
do  touch,  and  breathe,  and  see ;  only  as  with  our 
souls.  But  they  are  the  "  things  in  heaven  above  " 
that  we  may  make  no  graven  image  of.  They  are 
only  spiritually  discerned. 

I  find  a  word  in  the  New  Testament,  —  a  word, 
indeed,  of  the  New  Testament,  has  found  me, 
newly,  —  a  word  burning  with  its  own  light,  and 
shedding  its  blaze  over  all  the  gospel,  from  every 
sentence  in  which  it  is  put.  A  word,  the  letter  of 
which  is  radiantly  one  with  its  spirit ;  and  taken 
simply  in  its  letter  translates  to  as  perfect  an  image 
as  things  can  give,  the  deep,  unspeakable  truth. 

The  word  is  "  glory." 

A  shining  Presence. 

A  lightening  forth  of  that  which  is  always  here, 
the  "  coming  "  of  which  is  as  the  flash  "  from  the 
one  part  to  the  other  part  under  heaven."  The 
electric  fact  abides ;  so  does  the  spiritual.  It  en 
velops  us  always.  When  the  fine,  subtle  condi 
tions  are  met,  then,  all  at  once,  heaven  and  earth 
are  full  of  its  brightness.  The  beginning  of  mira 
cles  done  in  Cana  of  Galilee  "  manifested  it  forth  ; " 
and  every  act  and  word  of  the  Son  of  Man  reveals 
it,  to  that  appearing  of  Him  which  is  and  shall  be 
**  in  the  glory  of  the  Father  and  with  his  angels." 


INTO  THE  MORNING.  207 

"  Said  I  not,"  he  asks,  "  if  ye  would  believe,  ye 
should  see  the  glory  of  God?"  Not  sign,  or 
wonder,  or  stroke  of  power;  but  disclosing ;  out 
shining  of  that  which  filleth  and  worketh  in  all ; 
the  living  nearness ;  the  heaven  in  which,  and  not 
up  to  it  from  afar,  we  pray  as  he  has  taught  us. 

That  is  what  "  glory "  says  to  me  all  through 
the  holy  pages  ;  that  is  the  key  it  is  for  me  to  the 
great  invisible ;  making  it  shine  out  of  darkness 
with  every  word  of  truth  and  every  teaching  of 
life  ;  from  the  prayer  that,  holding  not  a  word  too 
much  or  unavailing,  begins  with  no  mere  ceremony 
of  address,  but  with  a  sentence  put  into  our  lips  to 
make  us  feel  all  heaven  about  us,  and  ourselves 
face  to  face  with  the  Father  in  his  holy  place,  be 
seeching  for  his  kingdoms  of  outer  and  inmost  to 
be  both  made  one,  —  to  the  hope  of  the  city  that 
shall  have  no  need  of  the  sun,  because  the  glory  of 
God  shall  lighten  it. 

The  Easter  flowers  are  in  the  window ;  and  the 
Easter  joy  is  in  my  heart. 

II  shall  not  always  be  blind ;  I  feel  what  touches 
me. 

Even  the  Son  of  Man,  who  came  down  from 
heaven  and  who  was  in  heaven,  bore  also  the  condi 
tions  of  the  flesh.  Even  after  his  resurrection  he 


208  PATIENCE  STRONG'S  OUTINGS. 

had  not  fully  "  ascended."  He  touched  that  realm 
as  we  touch  it ;  it  was  close  and  warm  about  him  ; 
he  knew  that  at  any  moment  he  might  ask  of  the 
Father  and  have  twelve  legions  of  angels  ;  yet  only 
now  and  then  they  "  appeared "  out  of  the  glory, 
strengthening  him  visibly ;  or  "  out  of  the  excel 
lent  glory  "  came  the  loving,  audible  voice  of  God. 

Can  we  not  wait  as  he  waited  ? 

Oh,  I  believe  that  there  is  no  away;  that  no 
love,  no  life,  goes  ever  from  us ;  it  goes  as  He 
went,  that  it  may  come  again,  deeper  and  closer 
and  surer ;  and  be  with  us  always,  even  to  the  end 
of  the  world. 

"  Out  of  the  body,  to  God."  That  shall  be  the 
last  outgoing  ;  the  everlasting  entering  in. 

That  is  what  we  wait  for,  —  the  adoption ;  the 
redemption  of  our  body ;  the  full  manifestation  of 
the  sons  of  God. 

That  is  what  shall  certainly  come  in  my  turn, 
even  to  me  also :  the  outgoing  of  the  morning ; 
the  instant  flowering  of  this  life  into  the  larger; 
the  new  birthday ;  and  as  we  found  each  other 
here,  when  this  life  was  to  be  for  us,  so  surely  your 


face  waiting  for  me  there,  — 


Motherdie  I 


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